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HOLY    SCRIPTURES: 

CRITICAL,  DOCTRINAL,  AND  HOMILETICAL 

WITH  SPECIAL  REFERENCE  TO  MINISTERS  AND  STUDENTS 

BT 

JOHN   PETER VLANGE,  D.  D., 

ORDINARY   PROFESSOR  OP  THEOLOGY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OP  BONH, 
or  oowmotiok  with  a  number  of  eminent  ki hope an  divotm 

TRANSLATED,   ENLARGED,   AND  EDITED 


PHILIP   SCHAFF,  D.  D., 

PROFESSOR   OF  THEOLOGY   IN  THE  ONION   THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY.   NEW   YORK, 
l»     CONNECTION     WITH     AMERICA*     SCHOLARS     OF     VARIOUS     EVANOEL1CAL     DENOMINATIONS. 


V01JOM&  XIV.  OV  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT:  CONTAINING  THE  MINOR  PROPHETS 


MEW  YORK: 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS, 

18i)(J 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2010  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/bookofjoel143schm 


THE 


MINOR  PROPHETS 


EXEGETICALLY,  THEOLOGICALLY.   AND   HOMILETICALLY 


EXPOUNDED 


PAUL   KLEINERT,   OTTO   SCHMOLLER, 

GEORGE   R.  BLISS,  TALBOT  W.  CHAMBERS,   CHARLES  ELLICTT. 

JOHN   FORSYTH,  J.  FREDERICK   McCURDY,   AND 

JOSEPH    PACKARD. 


EDITED  BY 

PHILIP   SCHAFF,  D.  D. 


NEW   YORK: 

CHARLES     SORIBNER'S     SONS, 
1699 


Atfered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  vear  1874,  fcr 

ScRiitNER,  Armstrong,  and  Compant, 
a  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Trow's 
Printing  and  Bookbinding  Company, 
205-213   East  f2th  St., 

NEW    YORK. 


PREFACE  BY  THE   GENERAL  EDITOR 


The  volume  on  the  Minor  Prophets  is  partly  in  advance  of  the  German  original, 
which  has  not  yet  reached  the  three  post-exilian  Prophets.  The  commentaries  on  the  nun 
earlier  Prophets  by  Professors  Kleinert  and  Schmoller  appeared  in  separate  numberi 
some  time  ago 1 ;  but  for  Haggai,  Zechariah,  and  Malachi,  Dr.  Lange  has  not,  to  this  date, 
been  able  to  secure  a  suitable  co-laborer.2  With  his  cordial  approval  I  deem  it  better  to 
complete  the  volume  by  original  commentaries  than  indefinitely  to  postpone  the  publication. 
They  were  prepared  by  sound  and  able  scholars,  in  conformity  with  the  plan  of  the  whole 
work. 

The  volume  accordingly  contains  the  following  parts,  each  one  being  paged  separately :  — 

1.  A  General  Introduction  to  the  Prophets,  especially  the  Minor  Prophets,  by 
Rev.  Charles  Elliott,  D.  D.,  Professor  of  Biblical  Exegesis  in  Chicago,  Illinois.  The 
general  introductions  of  Kleinert  and  Schmoller  are  too  brief  and  incomplete  for  our  purpose, 
and  therefore  I  requested  Dr.  Elliott  to  prepare  an  independent  essay  on  the  subject. 

2.  Hosea.  By  Rev.  Dr.  Otto  Schmoller.  Translated  from  the  German  and  en- 
larged by  James  Frederick  McCurdy,  M.  A.,  of  Princeton,  N.  J. 

8.  Joel.  By  Otto  Schmoller.  Translated  and  enlarged  by  Rev.  John  Forsyth, 
D.  D.,  LL.  D.,  Chaplain  and  Professor  of  Ethics  and  Law  in  the  United  States  Military 
Academy,  West  Point,  N.  Y. 

4.  Amos.  By  Otto  Schmoller.  Translated  and  enlarged  by  Rev.  Talbot  W 
Chambers,  D.  D.,  Pastor  of  the  Collegiate  Reformed  Dutch  Church,  New  York. 

5.  Obadiah.  By  Rev.  Paul  Kleinert,  Professor  of  Old  Testament  Theology  in  the 
University  of  Berlin.  Translated  and  enlarged  by  Rev.  George  R.  Bliss,  D.  D.,  Professor 
in  the  University  of  Lewisburg,  Pennsylvania. 

6.  Jonah.  By  Prof.  Paul  Kleinert,  of  the  University  of  Berlin.  Translated  and  en- 
larged by  Rev.  Charles  Elliott,  Professor  of  Biblical  Exegesis  in  Chicago.8 

7.  Micah.  By  Prof.  Paul  Kleinert,  of  Berlin,  and  Prof.  George  R.  Bliss,  of  Lewie- 
burg. 

8.  Nahum.  By  Prof.  Paul  Kleinert,  of  Berlin,  and  Prof.  Charles  Elliott,  of 
Chicago. 

9.  Habaeeue.     By  Professors  Kleinert  and  Elliott. 

1  Obadjah,  Jonah,  Mieha,  Nahum,  Habakuk,  Zephanjak.  Wissenshqftlieh  undfUr  den  Oebrauch  der  Kirehe  autgelegt  con 
PUOL  Kledjbbt,  Pfarrer  zu  St.  Gertraud  unci  a.  Professor  an  der  Universitdt  zu  Berlin.  Bielefeld  u.  Leipzig,  1868.  —  Die 
Propheten  Hosea,  Joel  und  Amos.  Theologiseh-homiletisch  bearbeitet  von  Orro  Sohmollxb,  Lieent.  der  Theologie,  Diaeonu* 
in  Urach.  Bielef.  and  Leipzig,  1872. 

2  The  commentary  of  Rev.  W.  Prbssel  on  these  three  Prophets  (Die  naehexiiisehen  Propheten,  Gotha,  1870)  m 
originally  prepared  for  Lange's  Eible-woric,  bnt  was  rejected  by  Dr.  Lange  mainly  on  account  of  Pressel's  views  on  th» 
genuineness  and  integrity  of  Zechariah.  It  was,  however,  independently  published,  and  was  made  use  of,  like  other 
commentaries,  by  the  authors  of  the  respective  sections  in  this  volume. 

8  Dr.  Elliott  desires  to  render  his  acknowledgments  to  the  Rev.  Reuben  Bederiok,  of  Chicago,  and  the  Rev.  Jacob 
Lotke,  of  Faribault,  Minnesota,  for  valuable  assistance  in  translation  some  difficult  passages  In  Kleinert'*  Commentary 
to  Jonah,  Nahum,  and  Habakkuk. 


PREFACE   BY   THE   GENERAL  EDITOR. 


10.  Zephaniah.     By  Professors  Kleinert  and  Elliott. 

11.  Haggai.     By  James  Frederick  McCurdy,  M.  A.,  Princeton,  N.  J. 

12.  Zechariah  By  Rev.  Talbot  W.  Chambers,  D.  D.,  New  York.  (See  special 
preface.) 

13.  Malachi.  By  Rev.  Joseph  Packard,  D.  D.,  Professor  of  Biblical  Literature  in 
the  Theological  Seminary  at  Alexandria,  Virginia. 

The  contributors  to  this  volume  were  directed  carefully  to  consult  the  entire  ancient  and 
modern  literature  on  the  Minor  Prophets  and  to  enrich  it  with  the  latest  results  of  German 
and  Anglo-American  scholarship. 

The  remaining  parts  of  the  Old  Testament  are  all  under  way,  and  will  be  published  ai 
fast  as  the  nature  of  the  work  will  permit. 

PHILIP   SCHAFF. 

Dbtioh  Thsolookim   Skxwats,  Ni"»  Vom,  .'jnuary,  1874. 


THE 


BOOK    OF    JOEL. 


EXPOUNDED 


/ 
OTTO   SCHMOLLER,  Ph.  D., 


URACH,   WUKTEMBSBG 


TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  GERMAN,  WITH  ADDITIONAL  NOTES  AND  ANEW  VEMB10S 

OF  THE  HEBREW  TEXT, 


JOHN  FORSYTH,  D.  D.,  LL.  D., 

CHAPLAIN  AST)  PROFESSOR  OF  ETHICS  AND  LAW  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES 
^MILITARY  ACADEMY,  WEST  POINT,  N.  Y. 


NEW  YORK: 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER'S    SONS, 


JHtared  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1874*  by 

Scbibner,  Armstrong,  and  Company, 
Jb  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  W&shingtoa. 


JOEL. 


INTRODUCTION. 

I.    Hie  Person  and  Time  of  the  Prcphzt. 

The  name  Joel,  VSYS  i.  e.,  Jehovah  is  God,  is  one  of  frequent  occurrence  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, having  been  borne  by  many  persons  mentioned  in  sacred  history.  For  this  reason 
our  Prophet,  whose  name  is  found  only  in  the  title  of  this  book,  is  distinguished  as  "  The 
son  of  Pethuel."  This  is  the  only  direct  notice  of  him,  and  all  the  other  incidents  of  his 
personal  history  must  be  inferred  from  the  book  that  bears  his  name.  He  certainly  lived  in 
the  kingdom  of  Judah,  for  in  the  call  to  the  people  to  meet  in  the  temple  for  the  purpose  of 
humiliation  and  repentance,  Zion,  and  Jerusalem,  and  Judah  alone  are  mentioned,  ii.  15,  23, 
32;  iii.  1,  6,  16,  18.  Of  these  localities  he  speaks  not  in  the  tone  of  a  stranger,  but  as  one 
who  was  personally  identified  with  them.  He  makes  no  allusion  whatever  to  the  state  of 
things  in  the  kingdom  of  Israel.  It  is,  therefore,  highly  probable  that  he  resided  and  proph- 
esied not  simply  within  the  limits  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  but  specially  at  Jerusalem. 
Again,  the  way  in  which  he  speaks  of  the  temple,  the  sacrifices,  and  the  priesthood,  raises 
the  presumption  that  he  was  himself  a  priest. 

The  Time  in  which  he  lived  is  nowhere  expressly  stated,  and  cannot  be  fixed  with  ab- 
solute certainty.  But  we  may  determine  it  approximately  from  the  relation  between  him 
and  Amos.  The  latter  begins  his  prophecy  (i.  2)  by  a  quotation  from  Joel  iii.  16,  and 
there  is  also  a  close  resemblance  between  Amos  ix.  13  and  Joel  iii.  18.  Hence  it  may  be 
inferred  that  Amos  had  the  prophecy  of  Joel  before  him  when  he  wrote  his  own.  Now 
the  time  when  Amos  flourished  may  be  easily  fixed  by  the  inscription  and  by  the  contents 
of  his  book,  namely,  in  the  days  of  the  Judaic  King  Uzziah,  and  of  the  Israelitic  King 
Jeroboam  H.  Joel,  therefore,  cannot  belong  to  a  later  period.  The  design  of  his  prophecy, 
and  the  condition  of  things  which  it  implies,  warrant  the  inference  that  he  lived  at  an  earlier 
day.  Ewald  justly  says,  "  A  later  prophet  would  not  have  been  so  deeply  moved  as  Joel 
was,  by  the  terrible  visitation  of  locusts  and  drought,  as  to  call  for  a  solemn  act  of  national 
repentance  on  this  ground  alone.  He  would  rather  have  seized  the  opportunity  to  point  out 
and  impress  upon  the  people  their  spiritual  defects,  and  while  exhorting  them  to  repentance, 
he  would  have  told  them  specially  of  the  sins  from  which  they  should  break  off,  and  return 
to  the  Lord."  In  Joel's  days  there  is  no  evidence  of  the  general  corruption  of  manners 
that  obtained  in  the  times  of  Amos  and  Hosea.  He  makes  no  marked  reference  to  par- 
ticular sins.  He  does  not  speak  of  idolatry ;  on  the  contrary,  the  worship  of  Jehovah  seems 
to  have  been  maintained  in  the  temple,  at  least  in  comparative  purity.  Israel,  indeed,  is 
exhorted  to  repent,  but  is  at  the  same  time  encouraged  by  precious  promises.  He  does  not 
exhibit  the  heathen  nations  as  the  instruments  of  God's  judgments  on  his  own  people ;  on 
the  contrary,  he  ever  sides  with  the  latter,  and  he  predicts  the  evils  that  shall  overtake 
the  heathen  for  what  they  have  done  to  Israel.  He  makes  no  allusion  to  Assyria.  The 
captivity  of  Israel  by  that  power  was  an  event  beyond  the  horizon  of  the  prophet.  This 
much  then  is  certain  :  that  as  the  worship  of  Jehovah  was  still  kept  up  in  his  day,  Joel 
could  not  have  belonged  to  the  times  of  Joram,  nor  Ahaziah,  nor  Athaliah.  He  must  have 
lived   before  or  after   their  day      We   cannot,  however,  place  him   very  long  before   the** 


4  JOEL. 

kings,  as  this  would  not  consist  with  the  reference  to  the  invasion  of  Judah  by  the  adjacent 
nations  (iii.  3-6),  which  implied  a  weakened  condition  of  the  kingdom,  nor  with  his  probable 
allusion  to  the  pillaging  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Philistines  and  the  Arabians  in  the  rei^n  of 
Joram.  Again,  the  revolt  of  Edom,  which  did  not  occur  earlier  than  the  time  of  Joram, 
must  be  taken  into  account.  Nor  must  Joel  be  separated  too  far  from  the  days  of  Amos. 
For  as  Amos  speaks  of  drought  and  locusts  as  judgments  which  God  was  about  to  inflict, 
we  may  infer  that  he  had  in  view  the  same  calamities  as  those  described  by  Joel.  It  is 
natural  to  suppose  that  they  came  upon  the  kingdom  of  Judah  to  which  Joel  belonged,  and 
that  of  Israel,  which  was  the  special  field  of  Amos.  Again,  Amos  speaks  of  the  Philistines, 
the  Tyrians,  and  Edom  (ch.  i.),  and  of  their  hostility  to  Israel,  in  a  strain  very  similar  to 
that  employed  by  Joel  (ch.  iii.).  Both  prophets  charge  them  with  the  same  sin,  and  de- 
nounce against  them  the  same  punishment.  Their  sin  was  that  of  capturing  Israelites  and 
selling  them  as  slaves ;  and  although  Joel  names  the  Grecians  as  guilty  of  this  crime,  and 
Amos  the  Edoraites,  yet  it  is  plain  that  they  both  had  in  view  the  same  events.  On  this 
ground,  Bleek  holds  that  Joel,  though  older  than  Amos,  was  his  contemporary,  and  places 
him  in  the  time  of  Uzziah.  Others  think  that  as  he  nowhere  alludes  to  Syria,  whose  capital 
Damascus  is  named  by  Amos  (i.  3),  nor  to  the  invasion  of  Israel  by  that  power  under 
Hazael,  in  the  days  of  Joasji,  he  must  have  flourished  in  the  early  part  of  that  reign,  be- 
tween b.  c.  870-850.  Certainly  if  he  lived  in  the  time  of  Joash  it  must  have  been  in  the 
early  part  of  his  reign,  while  he  was  still  under  the  healthful  influence  of  Joihada  the  high 
priest,  for  at  a  later  day  he  introduced  the  worship  of  Baal.  To  this  view  Bleek  objects 
that  while  Joel  might  have  been  expected  to  refer  to  the  Syrian  invasion  if  his  book  hau 
been  written  very  soon  after  that  event,  there  would  be  no  reason  for  naming  it  if  he  wrote 
it  in  the  days  of  Uzziah,  fifty  years  after  it  happened,  since  Syria  was  remote  from  Judah, 
and  separated  from  it  by  the  then  existing  kingdom  of  Israel.  But  to  this  it  may  be  re- 
plied that  Tyre  and  Sidon  were  also  separated  from  Judah  in  the  same  way.  Hence  as 
both  prophets  refer  to  the  same  heathen  nations,  while  Damascus  is  mentioned  by  Amos 
alone,  this  difference  becomes  all  the  more  remarkable,  and  seems  to  warrant  the  inference 
that  Joel  could  not  have  lived  during  the  Syrian  invasion.  Though  the  events  detailed  by 
Joel,  on  account  of  which  the  nations  concerned  in  them  would  be  punished,  must  have  been 
in  the  view  of  Amos,  yet  there  must  also  have  been  other  occurrences,  such  as  the  war  with 
Syria,  nearer  to  his  time,  and  more  immediately  affecting  the  kingdom  of  Israel  to  which 
he  belonged.  Hence  if  Amos  prophesied  about  B.  c.  810,  Joel  must  have  done  so  about 
b.  c.  850.  But  while  Joel  was  older  than  Amos,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  is  the  oldest  of 
the  prophets  whose  writings  we  possess.  He  has  many  points  of  contact  with  Obadiah 
(comp.  Ob.  10,  Joel  iii.  19  ;  Ob.  11,  Joel  iii.  3  ;  Ob.  15,  Joel  i.  15,  ii.  1,  iii.  12,  17  ;  Ob.  18, 
Joel  iii.  8).  It  is  a  question  which  of  these  two  prophets  is  the  elder.  It  is  not  im- 
probable, though  by  no  means  certain,  that  Joel  had  before  him  the  book  of  Obadiah,  when 
he  wrote  his  prophecy.      But  we  shall  not  pursue  the  discussion. 

[Wunsche,  the  most  recent  expositor  of  this  book.1  fixes  the  time  of  Joel  as  somewhere 
between  B.  c.  860-850,  and  the  grounds  on  which  he  bases  his  opinion  are  these  :  — 

1.  Joel  charges  the  Philistines  with  having  invaded  Judah,  captured  the  inhabitants,  and 
sold  them  as  slaves.  Now  according  to  2  Chron.  xxi.  10,  this  happened  under  Joram,  b.  c. 
889-883.  And  they  suffered  the  punishment  predicted  for  their  crime,  under  Uzziah,  2 
Chron.  xxvi.  6.  Hence  Joel  could  not  have  written  this  book  before  B.  c.  889,  nor  later 
than  732. 

2.  The  Phoenicians,  i.  e.,  those  of  Tyre  and  Sidon,  who  in  the  days  of  David  and  Solo- 
mon were  the  allies,  had  in  later  times  become  the  enemies  of  Judah.  They  too  had  been 
guilty  of  selling  Jewish  prisoners  to  the  Grecians.  Joel  predicts  that  they  also  shall  be 
punished  for  this  crime,  —  a  prediction  fulfilled  in  the  time  of  Uzziah,  b.  c.  811-759.  This 
proves  that  Joel  must  have  prophesied  before  the  days  of  Uzziah. 

3.  The  Edomites  (iii.  19),  are  ranked  among  the  enemies  of  Judah.  They  came  from  the 
same  stock  as  the  Jews,  and  on  account  of  their  sin  against  their  brethren,  their  country  was 
to  become  a  perpetual  desolation.  From  2  Kings  viii.  20,  comp.  with  2  Chron.  xxi.  8,  we 
learn  that  they  became  independent  of  Judah  in  the  time  of  Joram,  B.  c.  889-883.  They 
were  again  subdued,  and  their  capital  city  Petra  captured,  B.  c.  838-811,  though  the  southern 
and  eastern  parts  of  their  territory  were  not  conquered  until  the  reign  of  Uzziah,  about 
B.  C.  830.      The  prophet  must  have  exercised  his  ministry,  therefore,  prior  to  the  latter  date. 

1  [Die  Weisfagungrn  des  Propheten  Joel,  iibersetzt  unit  erkturi,  von  Dr.  Aug.  Wunsilie.  Leipzig:,  1872.  '  T«r» 
»1»  borate  work.  —  J.  ¥.\ 


INTRODUCTION. 


4.  The  fact  that  no  mention  is  made  of  the  invasion  by  the  Syrians  of  Damascus,  proves 
that  Joel  was  one  of  the  early  prophets.  This  occurred  in  the  latter  part  of  the  leign  of 
Joash,  B.  C.  850-840. 

5.  The  high  antiquity  of  Joel  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  makes  no  reference  to  the 
Assyrian  invasion  of  the  two  Jewish  kingdoms  in  b.  c.  790.  On  the  other  hand,  Amoa 
clearly  alludes  to  it  (vi.  14). 

6.  Another  proof  is  derived  from  the  relation  between  Joel  and  Amos.  The  latter  waa 
certainly  well  acquainted  with  and  used  the  writings  of  the  former. 

7.  The  mention  of  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat  is  a  circumstance  leading  to  the  same  conclu- 
sion. It  took  this  name  from  the  memorable  victory  there  gained  over  Moab  and  Ammon. 
The  way  in  which  Joel  refers  to  it  shows  that  this  event  must  have  been  a  comparatively 
recent  one,  and  that  the  memory  of  it  was  still  fresh. 

On  these  grounds  we  conclude  that  in  fixing  the  time  of  this  prophet,  we  cannot  take  for 
our  terminus  a  quo  an  earlier  date  than  b.  c.  890,  nor  for  our  terminus  ad  quern  a  later  one 
than  840.  It  most  probably  falls  between  b.  c.  860-850.  Joel  therefore  is  the  oldest  of  the 
Minor  Prophets.  —  F.] 

Of  the  Ministry  of  our  Prophet,  f.  e.,  as  to  the  way  in  which  he  exercised  it,  we  know 
nothing  beyond  what  may  be  gathered  from  this  book.  Whether  he  first  appeared  simply  aa 
a  preacher,  or  worked  at  the  same  time  in  other  ways,  cannot  be  determined.  From  what 
we  know  respecting  the  other  prophets,  it  is  more  than  probable  that  his  prophetic  teachinga 
were  originally  oral,  but  if  so,  they  must  have  been  soon  reduced  to  writing  in  the  form  in 
which  we  now  have  them.  That  he  exerted  a  commanding  influence  on  the  popular  mind  is 
clear  from  ch.  ii.  18,  especially  if  this  verse  be  taken  in  a  historical  sense.  But  in  any 
view  of  it  the  passage  shows  that  the  prophet  was  conscious  of  his  power ;  for  he  not  only 
exhorts  the  nation  to  repentance,  but  imperatively  demands  it,  and  he  does  so  with  the 
evident  assurance  that  he  will  be  obeyed.  For  this  reason  we  are  inclined  to  think  that  he 
belonged  to  the  order  of  the  priesthood,  and  that  his  exhortations  were,  in  the  first  instance, 
addressed  to  his  brethren  in  that  office. 

IL    Of  the  Book. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  the  book  bearing  the  name  of  Joel  was  written  by  himself. 
Not  only  is  there  no  ground  for  doubt  on  this  head,  but  all  the  positive  evidence  in  the  case 
is  strongly  on  the  same  side ;  as,  for  example,  the  perfect  unity  that  marks  the  book,  one 
chapter  fitting  into  another  with  the  most  complete  exactness.  Even  if  we  admit,  what 
some  assert,  that  ch.  ii.  10,  etc.,  belongs  to  a  later  date  than  the  other  parts  of  the  book,  our 
remark  holds  good,  for  it  is  most  closely  connected  with  what  precedes  and  follows  it. 
Whether  we  have  the  discourses  of  the  prophet  precisely  as  they  were  delivered  ( supposing 
it  to  have  been  orally),  or  only  the  substance  of  them,  is  a  point  which  cannot  be  de- 
termined, and  is  really  one  of  no  practical  importance.  Most  probably  we  have  them  in  the 
latter  form,  as  the  high  finish  and  poetical  diction  of  the  book,  specially  in  the  first  two 
chapters,  suggest  the  idea  of  literary  elaboration,  rather  than  that  of  a  simple  reporting  of 
oral  discourses. 

[Of  the  Style  of  the  Prophet,  the  chief  characteristic,  says  Dr.  Pusey,  is  perhaps  its  sim- 
ple vividness.  Everything  is  set  before  us,  as  though  we  ourselves  saw  it.  This  is  alike 
the  character  of  the  description  of  the  desolation  in  the  first  chapter,  the  advance  of  the 
locusts  in  the  second,  or  that  more  awful  gathering  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat  described  in  the 
third.  The  prophet  adds  detail  to  detail ;  each  clear,  brief,  distinct,  a  picture  in  itself;  yet 
adding  to  the  effect  of  the  whole.  We  can  without  an  effort  bring  the  whole  of  each  pic- 
ture before  our  eyes.  Sometimes  he  uses  the  very  briefest  form  of  words,  two  words,  in  his 
own  language,  sufficing  for  each  feature  in  his  picture.  One  verse  consists  of  five  such  pairs 
of  words,  i.  10.  Then  again  the  discourse  flows  on  in  a  soft  and  gentle  cadence,  like  one 
of  those  longer  sweeps  of  an  .35olian  harp.  This  blending  of  energy  and  softness  is  perhaps 
one  secret  why  the  diction  also  of  this  prophet  has  been  at  all  times  so  winning  and  so 
touching.  Deep  and  full,  he  pours  out  the  tide  of  his  words  with  an  unbroken  smoothness, 
carries  all  along  with  him,  yea,  like  those  rivers  of  the  new  world,  bears  back  the  bitter  rest- 
less billows  which  oppose  him,  a  pure  strong  stream  amid  the  endless  heavings  and  tossing 
of  the  world.  Poetic  as  Joel's  language  is,  he  does  not  much  use  distinct  imagery.  For 
his  whole  picture  is  one  image.      They  are  God's  chastemngs  througr.  inanimate  nature,  pic* 


6  JOEL. 

turing  the  worse  chastenings  through  man.  Full  of  sorrow  himself,  he  summons  all  with 
bim  to  repentance,  priests  and  people,  old  and  young,  bride  and  bridegroom.  The  tender- 
ness of  his  soul  is  evinced  by  his  lingering  over  the  desolation  which  he  foresees.  It  is 
like  one  counting  over,  one  by  one,  the  losses  he  endures  in  the  privations  of  others.  Na- 
ture to  him  seemed  to  mourn ;  he  had  a  fellow  feeling  of  sympathy  with  the  brute  cattle 
which,  in  his  ears,  mourn  so  grievously ;  and  if  none  else  would  mourn  for  their  own  sins,  he 
would  himself  mourn  to  Him  who  is  full  of  compassion  and  mercy.  Amid  a  wonderful 
beauty  of  language  he  employs  words  not  found  elsewhere  in  the  Holy  Scripture.  In  one 
verse  (i.  16),  he  has  three  such  words.  The  extent  to  which  the  prophecies  of  Joel  reappear 
in  the  later  prophets  has  been  exaggerated.  The  subjects  of  the  prophecy  recur  ;  not,  for 
the  most  part,  in  the  form  in  which  they  were  delivered.  The  great  imagery  of  Joel  is  much 
more  adopted  and  enforced  in  the  New  Testament  than  the  Old,  —  of  the  locust,  the  out- 
pouring  of  the  Spirit,  the  harvest,  the  wine-treading,  the  wine-press.  To  this  unknown 
Prophet,  whom  in  his  writings  we  cannot  but  love,  but  of  whose  history,  condition,  rank, 
parentage,  birthplace,  nothing  is  known,  nothing  beyond  his  name,  save  the  name  of  an  un- 
known father,  of  whom,  moreover,  God  has  allowed  nothing  to  remain  save  these  few  chap 
ters,  —  to  him  God  reserved  the  prerogative,  first  to  declare  the  outpouring  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  upon  all  flesh,  the  perpetual  abiding  of  the  Church,  the  final  struggle  of  good  and 
evil,  the  last  rebellion  against  God,  and  the  Day  of  Judgment. 

The  tone  of  Joel's  writings,  says  Wiinsche,  indicates  deep  religious  feelings,  heartfelt  ex- 
perience, and  warm  sympathy.  His  moral  ideas  are  lofty  and  pure,  and  testify  to  the  relig- 
ious knowledge  and  the  holy  life  of  the  prophet.  His  poetry  is  distinguished  by  the  soaring 
flight  of  his  imagination,  the  originality,  beauty,  and  variety  of  his  images  and  similes.  The 
conceptions  are  simple  enough,  but  they  are  at  the  same  time  bold  and  grand.  The  perfect 
order  in  which  they  are  arranged,  the  even  flow  and  well  compacted  structure  of  the  discourse, 
are  quite  remarkable.  In  his  energy,  power,  and  dignity,  Joel  reminds  us  of  Micah ;  in  his 
vivacity  and  lifelike  freshness  he  resembles  Nahum ;  in  his  originality  and  directness,  in  the 
bold  range,  and  sublime  strain  of  his  ideas,  he  falls  but  a  little  below  Isaiah :  in  his  enthu- 
siastic zeal  for  true  religion,  and  his  clear,  earnest,  penetrating  insight  into  the  moral  dis- 
orders of  his  times,  he  resembles  Amos.  Joel  threatens  and  warns  ;  he  descends  into  the 
innermost  recesses  of  human  nature,  and  he  drags  into  the  light  of  day,  corruption,  false- 
hood, and  lukewarmness  in  the  worship  of  Jehovah.  Of  our  Prophet,  Umbreit  finely  says  : 
The  Prophetic  mantle  which  enrobed  his  lofty  form,  was  worthy  of  his  majestic  spirit; 
its  color  is  indeed  dark  and  solemn,  like  the  day  of  the  Lord  which  he  predicts,  yet  we  see 
sparkling  upon  it  the  stars  of  the  eternal  lights  of  love  and  grace.  —  F.] 

The  Occasion  of  this  book  was  a  terrible  visitation  of  Judah  by  locusts  and  drought 
The  prophet  describes  the  devastation  produced,  and  viewing  it  as  the  beginning  of  a  great 
judgment  day  of  the  Lord,  he  calls  upon  the  priests  to  appoint  a  day  for  national  humiliation 
and  prayer.  This  must  have  been  done,  since  he,  by  divine  authority,  promises  the  people 
the  richest  blessings  for  the  present  and  the  future,  as  well  as  complete  deliverance  from  all 
their  enemies. 

The  book  consists  of  two  Parts,  which  must  be  carefully  distinguished.  They  are  as 
follows :  — 

Part  I.  includes  chaps,  i.-ii.  17;  Part  II.  extends  from  ii.  19  to  the  end  of  eh.  iii.  They 
are  connected  together  by  the  historical  statement  (ii.  18,  19). 

Part  I.  The  plagues  already  named,  are  described  as  a  divine  judgment.  The  call  to 
repentance. 

Ch.  i.  The  unprecedented  plague  of  locusts  and  drought  is  described,  and  those  on  whom 
it  fell  are  called  upon  to  lament  over  the  desolation  of  the  land  caused  by  it;  one  of  the  worst 
results  of  it  being  the  necessity  for  suspending  the  daily  sacrifices.  For  this  reason  the 
priests  are  required  to  mourn  themselves,  and  to  summon  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  j.and  to 
ioin  with  them  in  their  lamentation. 

Ch.  ii.  This  visitation  is  simply  a  token  that  a  great  judgment  day  of  the  Lord  is  com- 
ing.  The  army  of  locusts,  of  which  a  graphic  picture  is  given,  is  the  host  of  the  Lord,  sent 
to°do  his  will  (vers.  1-11).  Still  the  threatened  judgment  may  be  averted  by  timely  re- 
pentance (vers.  12-14).  Hence  the  priests  should  appoint  a  day  of  humiliation  and  prayer 
and  should  beseech  the  Lord  to  have  mercy  upon  the  nation  as  being  his  own  people  (vers 
14-17). 

Part  II.  contains  promises  :   (1  )   For  the  present  (ii.  18-27).      God  will  deliver  his  people 


INTRODUCTION.  7 


from  the  plague  and  amply  repair  the  evil  done  by  it,  by  new  blessings,  and  so  prove  that 
Israel  is  his  people.  (2.)  For  the  future  still  greater  things  are  promised.  The  day  of  the 
Lord  is  surely  coming,  but  to  Israel  it  shall  be  a  day  of  salvation,  and  a  day  of  terror  only 
to  Israel's  foes.  This  day  shall  be  introduced  by  the  outpouring  of  God's  Spirit  upon  the 
whole  people.  There  shall  be  at  the  same  time  terrible  signs  in  the  heavens  and  the  earth, 
from  which  there  is  safety  only  in  Zion.  But  there,  all  will  be  perfectly  secure  (ch.  iii.  1-8). 
The  day  itself  is  described  as  one  of  deliverance  for  Israel,  and  of  destruction  for  their  ene- 
mies, i.  e.,  "  the  nations."  These  nations  are  reproached  for  their  crimes  against  Israel,  and 
shall  be  punished  on  account  of  them  (vers.  9-16).  Infliction  of  the  punishment.  The 
Lord  assembles  Israel  and  the  nations,  in  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat.  At  first  it  seems  as  if  the 
nations  were  on  the  point  of  storming  the  holy  city,  but  then  and  there,  amid  terrible  signs, 
they  are  annihilated  by  the  Lord  at  one  blow.  The  dawning  of  Israel's  salvation  described 
(vers.  17-20).  Uninjured  by  their  enemies,  protected  by  their  God,  who  dwells  forever  in 
the  midst  of  them,  his  people  enjoy  the  richest  blessings. 

What  Joel  says  of  the  locusts  is  not  to  be  taken  simply  as  an  allegory,  nor  as  a  merely 
figurative  description  of  the  hosts  of  war.  Nor  is  the  first  chapter  a  prediction  ;  on  the 
contrary  it  describes  his  own  experience. 

Importance  of  this  Book.  We  find  that  it  was  held  in  high  consideration  by  the  latsr 
prophets.  We  have  already  mentioned  the  use  made  of  it  by  Amos.  It  is  also  quite  plain 
that  Isaiah  used  it  (comp.  Is.  xiii.  3,  6,  8,  10,  13,  and  Joel,  ii.  1-11  ;  iii.  15,  16).  That  other 
later  prophets  had  the  book  before  them  will  be  obvious  to  any  one  who  examines  a  Bible 
with  parallel  references.  Delitzsch,  therefore,  justly  says,  "  Among  the  prophets  who  flour- 
ished from  the  time  of  Uzziah  to  that  of  Jeroboam,  Joel  unquestionably  holds  the  position 
of  a  type  or  model,  and  after  Amos,  there  is  not  one  whose  writings  do  not  remind  us  of 
him."  We  may  even  claim  for  Joel  (and  Obadiah  also  if  we  regard  him  as  one  of  the 
earlier  prophets),  a  sort  of  fundamental  significance  for  the  whole  series  of  later  prophets, 
not  only  on  account  of  his  clear  and  precise  prediction  of  the  coining  of  the  day  of  the 
Lord,  but  also  because  of  the  way  in  which  he  connects  Israel  with  it.  Even  God's  cove- 
nant people  must  look  well  to  see  how  they  stand,  for  in  that  day,  repentance  alone  can  help 
them.  If  this  is  wanting,  if  Israel  departs  from  God,  escape  from  the  coming  judgment  will 
be  impossible,  —  a  truth  which  the  later  prophets  exhibit  with  an  ever-growing  emphasis  and 
distinctness.  The  prophecies  of  Joel  are,  it  seems  to  me,  fundamental  in  another  sense, 
namely,  in  the  promises  they  give  respecting  Israel's  future.  Though  Israel  must  first  suffer 
on  account  of  their  sins,  yet  the  prophet  anticipates  with  confidence  the  time  when  they 
shall  return  in  penitence  to  God,  and  predicts  that  they  shall  win  a  glorious  triumph,  while 
all  their  enemies,  t.  e.,  the  world,  shall  be  utterly  destroyed.  Thus  Joel  (uniting  himself,  as 
it  were,  with  Obadiah  in  unfolding  and  confirming  the  prophetic  promises  on  this  head), 
fixes  with  an  assured  faith  the  position  of  Israel,  as  God's  own  people,  and  foretells  their 
glorious  victory  over  all  their  foes,  though  the  latter  may,  for  the  present,  bring  upon  them 
much  shame  and  sorrow.  What  the  eye  sees  cannot  be  an  object  of  faith,  which  has  to  do 
irith  things  for  the  time  being  invisible.  Accordingly  Joel  has  given  a  key-note  (much 
more  full  than  that  of  Obadiah's),  which  was  repeated  by  the  later  prophets ;  he  unfurled  a 
standard,  so  to  speak,  which  shall  never  cease  to  wave  on  high.  The  later  prophets  would 
witness  the  deep  humiliation  of  God's  people  by  the  nations,  t.  e.,  the  world  power  ;  they 
would  have  to  announce  the  total  overthrow  of  the  commonwealth  of  Israel,  the  annihilation 
of  its  political  existence,  as  a  well-deserved  punishment  for  their  sins.  But  notwithstand- 
ing this,  all  that  Joel  had  promised  would  be  realized  ;  the  day  of  the  Lord  was  surely 
coming  for  the  heathen,  —  a  day  of  fearful  recompense  to  them,  but  to  his  own  people  a  day 
of  deliverance  and  eternal  salvation.  So  we  find  that  in  spite  of  the  denunciations  against 
the  chosen  people  on  account  of  their  apostasy,  in  spite  of  the  judgments  to  be  inflicted 
upon  them  through  the  agency  of  the  heathen,  the  faith  and  hope  of  the  prophets  in  regard 
to  the  future  of  Israel  are  never  shaken.  They  perpetually  recur  to  the  promise  that  the 
uord  will  not  cast  off  his  people.  A  remnant  shall  survive.  In  this  remnant  Jehovah  will 
be  glorified,  and  will  show  that  his  ultimate  design  was  not  to  destroy  his  people,  but  to 
bestow  upon  them  fresh  favors,  yea  far  higher  ones  than  their  fathers  enjoyed.  This  prom- 
ise becomes  more  and  more  closely  allied  to  the  hope  of  a  Messiah,  and  gives  to  it  a  more 
and  more  positive  shape.  This  hope  of  a  Messiah  is  the  solid  basis  of  all  other  hopes  of 
Israel's  future  and  glorious  destiny.  Joel,  indeed,  does  not  in  express  terms  describe  this 
Messianic  foundation,  as  it  may  be  called,  but  he  has  a  gent  r  il  conception  of  it,  and  for  this 


8  JOEL. 

reason  we  have  said  that  his  prophecy  may  properly  be  called  a  fundamental  one,  i.  e.,  with 
reference  to  those  on  the  same  subject,  in  later  times. 

III.    Literature  of  the  Book  (exclusive  of  Commentaries  on  ihe  Minor  Prophets  as  a  whole) 

Sebast.  Tuscaui,  Eretn.  Augustin.  Comment,  in  Joel,  Colon.,  1556  ;  Joel  cum  Adnot  et  Ver- 
sione  trium  Rabbin,  per  Gilb.  Genebrand,  Paris,  1563  ;  Eli  Schadaeus,  Synopsis  Joel,  Ardent, 
1588 ;  F.  Bunny,  Enarratio  in  Joel,  Lond.,  1588,  1595  ;  J.  Mathia?,  Pr&lectiones  in  Joel,  Basil, 
1590;  S.  Simonidis,  Comm.  in  Joel,  Cracov,  1593;  Sol.  Gesner,  Comm.  in  Joel,  Viteb.,  1614  ; 
J.  H.  Ursinus,  Comm.  in  Joel,  Francov.,  1641  ;  Ed.  Pocock,  Comm.  in  Proph.  Joel,  Lips.,  1695  ; 
Haseus,  Joel  Illustrata,  Bremen,  1697;  J.  J.  Schurrman,  Proph.  Joel,  Wesel,  1700  (also 
Holland  version,  1 703)  ;  Sam.  Chandler,  Paraphrase  and  Critical  Comment,  on  Joel,  London, 
1735;  C.  F.  Bauer,  Introd.  in  Joel,  Wittemb.  1741;  G.  N.  Richter,  in  Joel,  Viteb.,  1747; 
Baumgarten,  Auslegung  des  Joel,  Halle,  1756;  P.  Conz,  Dissert  de  Charact  Poet  Joels,  Tub., 
1783  ;  J.  Buttner,  Joel  olim  Hebr&us,  Coburg,  1784;  J.  R.  Eckerman,  Joel  metrisch  ubersetzi 
u nd  erklart,  Lubeck  und  Leipzig,  1786  ;  Justi,  Joel  ubersetzt  und  erklart,  Leipzig,  1792;  A. 
Svanborg,  Joel  Latine  Versus,  et  Notis  philol.  illustrata,  Upsal,  1806  ;  F.  A.  Holzhausen, 
Comment.,  1829 ;  K.  A.  Credner,  1831 ;  A.  Wunsche,  Die  Weissayungen  des  Propheten  Joel, 
Ubersetzt  und  erklart,  Leipzig,  1872.  Among  practical  expositors,  may  be  named,  J.  Died- 
rich,  der  Proph.  Joel,  kurz  erklart,  Leipzig,  1861. 


THE  PROPHET  JOEL. 


PART   FIRST. 

THE  JUDGMENT   AND   CALL  TO  REPENTANCE. 

Chapters  I.  l-II.  17. 


SECTION  I. 

Complaint  of  the  Desolation  of  Judah  by  Locusts  and  Drought. 

Chapter  I. 

1  The  word  of  Jehovah  which  came  to l  Joel,  the  son  of  Pethuel. 

2  Hear  this,  ye 2  old  men, 

And  give  ear 8  all  ye  inhabitants  of  the  land ! 
Hath  such  4  a  thing  been  in  your  days, 
Or  even  in  the  days  of  your  fathers  ? 

3  Tell  it 6  to  your  children, 

And  your  children  to  their  children, 
And  their  children  to  another  generation. 

4  What  the  palmer  worm 6  hath  left,  the  locust  hath  eaten, 
And  what  the  locust  hath  left,  the  beetle  hath  eaten, 

And  what  the  beetle  hath  left,  the  caterpillar  hath  eaten. 

5  Awake 7  ye  drunkards,8  and  weep, 
And  cry  out 9  all  ye  drinkers  of  wine 
On  account  of  the  new  wine  (or  must),10 
For  it  is  cut  off  (removed)  from  your  mouth. 

6  For u  a  people  u  hath  invaded 13  my  land,14 
Mighty  and  numberless ; 

Their  teeth  are  the  teeth  of  a  lion, 

And  they  have  the  jaw  teeth  of  a  lioness. 

7  They  have  laid  waste  my  vine,15 

And  barked  (or  broken)  my  fig  trees  ; 

They  have  made  it  quite  bare,16  and  cast  it  away ; 

Its  branches  are  made  white. 

8  Lament ir  like  a  bride  18 

Girded  with  sackcloth  for  the  husband  of  her  youth. 

9  Cut  off  is  the  meat  offering  and  the  drink  offering  from  the  house  of  Jehovah  | 

The  priests  mourn 

The  ministers  19  of  Jehovah. 

10  The  field  is  wasted,20 
The  land  mourneth,21 
For  the  corn  is  destroyed, 
The  new  wine  is  dried  up, 
The  oil22  fails. 

11  Be  ashamed  ye  husbandmen, 
Howl  ye  viue-dressers, 


10  JOEL. 

For  the  wheat  and  for  the  barley 23 ; 

Because  the  harvest  of  the  field  hath  perished. 

12  The  vine  is  dried  up, 
And  the  fig  tree  faileth, 

The  pomegranate,  also  the  palm,  and  the  apple  tree  (quince 

All  the  trees  of  the  field  are  withered, 

So  that  joy  is  dried  up24  from  the  sons  of  men. 

13  Gird  yourselves  and  lament,  ye  priests, 
Cry  out  ye  ministers  of  the  altar  ; 
Come,  lie  ail  night  in  sackcloth 

Ye  ministers  of  my  God, 

For  the  meat  offering  and  the  drink  offering 

Are  withheld  from  the  house  of  your  God. 

14  Sanctify  a  fast, 

Appoint  a  solemn  assembly, 
Gather  the  elders, 
And  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land 
In  the  house  of  Jehovah  your  God ; 
And  cry  unto  Jehovah. 

15  Alas  for  the  day  ! 

Because  the  day  of  Jehovah  is  at  hand ; 

It  will  come  like25  a  tempest  from  the  Almighty  (Shaddai). 

16  Is  not  the  food  cut  off  before  our  eyes  ? 

Joy  and  gladness  from  the  house  of  our  God  ? 

17  The  grains27  (seeds)  are  rotten27  under  their  clods,2' 
The  garners  are  destroyed, 

The  barns27  are  broken  down, 
Because  the  corn  is  withered. 

18  How  the  beasts  groan  ! 

The  herds  of  cattle  are  perplexed, 
Because  they  have  no  pasture  ; 
Even  the  flocks  of  sheep  perish. 

19  Unto  Thee,  O  Jehovah,  will  I  cry, 

For  the  fire  hath  devoured  all  the  pastures  of  the  plain, 
And  the  flame  hath  burned  all  the  trees  of  the  field. 

20  Even28  the  beasts  of  the  field29  cry  nnto  Thee 
For  the  streams  of  water  are  dried  up, 

And  the  fire  hath  devoured  the  pastures  of  the  plain  (wilderness) 


TEXTUAL   AND   GRAMMATICAL. 

1  Ver.  1.  —  The  preposition  vS  indicates  direction,  and  like  the  Arab.  (J|  includes  ordinarily  the  temtntu  ad 
pum.      Sept.  os   iyevrfit)  irpos  'I<ojjA. 

J    Ver.  2. D^DpTH.    The  Ueb.,  unlike  the  Arab.,  has  no  proper  vocative,  and  hence  the  simple  noun  with  ;*  with 

lot  the  article  takes  its  place. 

8  Ver.  2.  —  ^TSn,  denom.  verb  from   "JTK :  it  is   stronger  than   3?£ttj,  but  is  only  used  in  poetry. 

*  Ver.  2  --  The  dagesh  in  the  second    HS'T   is  the  dog.  forte  conj. 

6  Ver.  3.—  rP7l\    The  fern,  suffix,  which  according  to  a  peculiar  Heb.  idiom  stands  for  the  neut.,  has  tor  its  ante 

T       V  7  " 

ledent  HST.     The  prep.    737  denotes  the  object  of  the  discourse  ;  it  is  used  like  the  Lat.  super,  and  Gr.  imip. 


CHAPTER  1  H 


«  Ver.  4.  —  There  is  little  difference  of  opinion  in  regard  to  the  etymology  of  the  names  of  the  insects  mentioned  in 
this  verse.  —  DT3  from  the  same  root  =  to  cut  off.     n3^S.  the  most  common  name  for  locust,  from  rT2™,  to  multiplv- 

TT  V    :  -  '  -   T  » 

p7^  from  the  same  root,  to  lick  up.  ^*Dn  from  VD1"1,  to  consume.  Expositors  are,  however,  very  much  divided 
(us  to  ■whether  these  terms  are  names  of  the  locust  at  different  stages  of  Its  growth,  or  of  different  species  of  insect.  Bp. 
Newcome  renders  them,  the  grasshopper  ;  the  locust,  the  devouring  locust ;  the  consuming  locust.  Hitzig,  Keil,  and 
others  regard  them  as  simply  poetical  epithets  of  one  and  the  same  species  of  locust.  It  is  hardly  possible  to  give  theif 
exact  equivalents  in  English. 

7  Ver.  5.  —  -Iti^prT  from  V-lp,  to  cut  off,  to  separate,  then  to  arouse,  or  awaken  ;  the  opposite  of  the  onomatopoetu 
word  Q"T*"1    to  snore,  to  sleep  heavily. 

8  Ver.  6-  —  O^iSU?   from  H3tt7.  a  strong  drink  made  of  honey,  raisins,  dates,  and  other  fruits.    Hence  the  word  « 

•  .    '  -    T    ' 

notorious  drunkards. 

9  Ver.  5.  —  ^17  wsm,  from  the  onomatopoetic    ?JS,  to  howl,  complain. 

10  Ver.  5.  —  D^Dl?   is  the  fresh  sweet  juice  of  the  grape,  and  other  kinds  of  fruit,  as  the  pomegranate,  Song  of  Sol. 

viii.  3,  and  is  to  be  distinguished  from  tZ7T"1\n,  new  wine,  strictly  so  called.  The  former  must  have  been  a  favorite 
drink  of  the  old  Hebrews. 

11  Ver.  6.  —  "O  makes  the  connection  between  this  and  the  preceding  verse. 

12  Ver.  6.  —  ^"12  denotes  a  heathen,  hostile  people,  and  differs  from  D37,  though  the  distinction  between  the  two 
words  is  not  always  observed.     See  Text,  notes  on  Obadiah,  ver.  1. 

13  Ver.  6.  —  •  !?  r*037,  lit.  gone  up,  upon,  perhaps  with  reference  to  the  fact  that  Palestine  is  higher  than  the  coun- 
tries around  it ;  but  the  word  is  often  used  in  the  more  general  sense:  to  approach,  to  enter,  etc.,  where  the  region  is  » 
level  one. 

1*  Ver.  6.  — "My  land,"  ^*J7S,  *•  «•,  not  the  land  of  Jehovah,  nor  simply  the  native  land  of  Joel,  but  the  land 
with  which  he  was  allied  as  the  prophet  of  the  Lord. 

'6  Ver.  7.  —  ^323,  "  mv  Tine,"  — not  the  vine  of  the  Lord,  but  of  the  Prophet  speaking  in  his  name 
1«  Ver.  7.  —  ?|ti?n    lit.,  "  peeling  it  have  peeled  it,"  i.  «.,  completely. 

17  Ver.  8. —  ^W,,  imper.  fern,  of  HvS,  and  an.  Aey.,  like  the  Chald.  and  Syr.  )  >-|-  The  more  usual  form  it 
7  w^rj.    Many  expositors,  without  reason,  take  it  as  a  denom.  from     ^S,  God. 

18  Ver.  8.  —  The  proper  Heb.  word  for  virgin  is  !"Tft  7^  The  word  here  used  denotes  a  bride,  i.  «.,  a  young  woman 
Mpoused.     See  Is.  vii.  14  ;   Matt.  i.  23. 

19  Ver  9.  —  VY"ltt?t3.  Ministers,  from  ri"1K7,  to  serve.  It  denotes  free  and  honorable  service,  t.  %.,  of  the  tempi* 
in  contrast  with   "Ol?  which  denotes  the  enforced  service  of  slaves. 

-   T 

20  Ver.  10.  —  mt?7   T"Ttt7.    A  paronomasia.     The  root  *7*Ttt?  has  in  Kal  first  the  intrans.  sense  to  be  strong,  next 

•  t         -  ;  -  t 

the  trans,  sense,  to  use  strength,  ».  «.,  to  waste,  to  desolate.  n7.tt?  denotes  specially  wheat  or  barley  fields,  then  woodland, 
Be.  is  where  cattle  fodder  ;   n£3"TS,  farmland  generally. 

21  Ver.  10. —  i"w3W,  the  Sept.  and  Arab,  versions  take  this  as  an  imper.,  and  render  it  "  Mourn  !  0  land." 

22  Ver.  10.  —  "ln^'1,  from  the  root  "in^,  to  be  clear,  t.  e.,  the  oil  newly  pressed  and  clarified ;  as  distinguished1 
from  TE27,   fat. 

23  Ver.  11.  —  ni3rpb3?.     The  prep.  bl7,  as  in  vers.  5,  7,  marks  the  cause.     77t3n  and  niil?tZ7  are  the  two 

T     •  '  T    •  t  : 

kinds  of  f!!^  :  the  one  kind  of  grain  being  used  as  food  by  men,  the  other  chiefly  by  cattle,  though  the  very  poor  used  both 

24  Ver.  12.  —  K7,,5^",,?•  We  have  nere  what  is  called  constructs  pregnans  =  TT^JX  W^h  "pEftP,  joy  ha* 
withered  and  fled  away. 

25  Ver.  15.  —  "Ftt?3.  The  expression  is  regarded  by  some  as  a  sort  of  proverbial  one.  3  is  not  pleonastic,  nor  th« 
lo-called   3  veriiatis,  but  indicates  likeness  in  quality  or  degree. 

26  Ver.  15.  —  "  From  Shaddai  —  the  Almighty."  The  Rabbins,  Raschi,  Abarbanel,  and  Maimonides  see  in  this  name 
a  profound  mystery,  because  it  is  a  noun  compounded  of  the  instp  prnnoun,  W,  with  pnttach  notat,  and  ^^T,  or  "^T 
to  hold.     The  rendering  of  the  Sept.,  Kal  us  rakanriopCa.  eic  ToAatmopi'as  jjfei,  is  wholly  inadmissible. 

27  Ver.  17.  —  The  three  an-af  Aeyo/u,.  words  in  this  verse,  render  it  both  as  to  etymology  and  grammar,  one  of  Mm 

moat  difficult  in  the  whole  book.  5127^37.  according  to  Aben  Ezra  and  Kimchi,  means  "  rotted  ; "  "  perished,"  New 
come;  "dried  up,"  Pusey,  Wdnsche.  Some  light  is  cast  on  the  sense  of  HITS,  by  the  Syr.  JJ-I^D^  seed, com 
and  the  Chald.  ~H3,  grain.  In  form  the  word  is  the  Paul  participle  of  "HQ.  The  third  word,  DiCT?  t>,  "  Vnb 
ably  from  the  root  f^3  —  found  only  in  Judg.  v.  21,  —  which  in  all  the  dialects  has  the  sense  of  to  bear  or  carry  away 

The  Arab.  .    j^^    denotes  the  breaking  up  of  the  soil  by  the  plough.     HQTQ,  therefore,  may  be  a  lump  of  soil, 

^™    J"? "       '  T    TJ    V 

a  clod,  such  m  is  thrown  up  by  the  plough.     So  the  old  Jewish  expositors  have  understood  it.     In  iTl"12?31!2  we  hav« 

another  anal  \fy.  —  yet  there  can  be  little  doubt  as  to  its  meaning.  The  £3  local  is  prefixed.  Newccm6  renders  i* 
"slore-hoiuMw    '     Tregelles,   '  granaries,  or  cells  for  keeping  grain." 


12 


JOEL. 


21  Ver   20.  —  D3     here  as  in  ver.  13,  marks  an  increase  of  the  general  calamity. 

29  Ver.  20.  —  The  construction  of  the /em.  sing,  with  the  plur.  noun  is  common  in  poetry,  and  is  proper  here  tocaaM 
fTfflQrjD  Is  used  in  a  collective  sense.    This  term  denotes  domestic  cattle.  —  F.] 


EXEGETICAL. 

Vers.  2-4.  (Hear  this  ye  old  men, — )  the  cater- 
pillar hath  eaten.  A  call  is  made  upon  the  inhab- 
itants of  Judah,  and  especially  the  old  men,  to  tes- 
tify that  an  unheard-of  thing  had  happened,  —  an 
event  to  be  told  to  their  posterity,  namely,  the 
complete  desolation  of  the  land  by  successive 
swarms  of  locusts. 

Ver.  2.  (Old  men.)  They  are  named  because 
their  memory  goes  back  the  farthest.  The  calam- 
ity might  well  be  deemed  extraordinary  if  they 
could  recall  nothing  like  it.  Inhabitants  of  the 
land,  I.  e.,  of  Judah,  as  is  evident  from  what  fol- 
lows ver.  14,  ii.  1.  fl'ST  refers  to  what  is  stated 
in  ver.  4.  In  vers.  2,  3  there  is  an  allusion  to 
Exod.  x.  2-6,  where  the  plague  of  locusts  in  Egypt 
is  spoken  of. 

Ver.  4.  Swarms  of  locusts  come,  each  one  de- 
vouring what  its  predecessor  had  left.  This,  how- 
ever, is  not  described  in  a  dry,  prosaic  way.  As 
the  locusts  appear  four  times,  they  bear  four  dis- 
tinct names.  Their  proper  name  is  '^5*nW>  the 
others  are  poetic  ones.  These  names  are  not  used 
simply  to  denote  the  changes  which  the  locusts 
undergo,  nor  their  invasion  of  the  land  during 
successive  years,  as  this  would  not  consist  with 
the  statement  that  what  one  kind  had  left,  another 

had  eaten.  The  preterite  ^?^  is  to  be  taken  in 
its  proper  sense.  The  whole  chapter  speaks  of 
something  that  has  actually  happened.  The  des- 
olation is  described  in  detail,  one  feature  of  it 
after  another  being  depicted  in  such  a  way  as  to 
arouse  those  affected  by  it  to  earnest  prayer. 

Verses  5-7.  Awake  ye  drunkards.  —  Its 
branches  are  made  white.  The  drunkards  are 
tailed  upon  to  mourn,  to  show  poetically  how 
complete  is  the  desolation  of  the  vineyards.  At 
the  same  time,  this  is  to  be  regarded  as  a  punish- 
ment for  the  sins  of  the  people,  who  are  summoned 
to  repent,  though  this  last  idea  is  not  yet  explicitly 
expressed. 

Ver.  6.  The  locusts  are  represented  under  the 
figure  of  a  hostile  army.  They  are  not  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  type  of  such  an  army,  as  if  the  pas- 
sage was  simply  allegorical.  Yet  the  idea  of  en- 
mity to  Israel  implied  in  the  word  "^3  —  a  heathen 
people, —  must  not  be  lost  sight  of,  for  these  locusts 
actually  ravage  the  land  of  Israel.     Hence  there 

is  no  ground  for  taking  H yV  otherwise  than  as  a 
preterite,  nearly  in  the  sense  of  a  future,  as  pre- 
dicting something  to  come.  ^-T^  is  the  land  of 
the  prophet  as  speaking  in  the  name  of  the  people. 
Jehovah  himself  does  not  speak  directly,  comp.  v. 
13.  The  arms  of  these  invaders  are  their  teeth, 
which  grind  like  those  of  a  lion.  The  jaw-teeth 
of  the  lioness  protecting  or  avenging  her  young 
are  added  by  way  of  climax. 

Ver.  7.  The  vine  and  fig  tree.  These  are  added 
because  they  are  among  the  must  valuable  of  fruit 

trees,  comp.  Hos.  ii.  14.  npTJp/  is  properly  that 
which  is  broken  off,  i.  e.,  a  fragment  of  wood, 
splinter,  chip.  i"T£ti?n,  made  bare,  by  barking  or 
paring,  so  as  to  peel  off.  The  bark  is  thrown 
►way  ;  and  the  whole  vine  is  made  white  or 
blanched  bj  the  barking  of  it. 


Vers.  8-10.  (Lament  like  a  bride,  —  the  oil 
fails.)  The  lamentation  of  the  drunkards  is  sim- 
ply a  prelude  to  what  follows.  It  would  be  a  mis- 
take to  suppose  that  sensual  pleasures  and  enjoy- 
ments alone  are  meant.  The  thing  at  stake  was 
so  much  greater  than  these,  that  the  whole  land 
had  cause  to  mourn. 

Ver.  8.  Judah  is  here  regarded  as  a  wife,  and 
hence  the  fitness  of  comparing  this  lamentation  to 
that  of  a  young  bride  mourning  the  husband  of 
her  youth.  Certainly  no  judgment  could  be  more 
severe  than  one  that  made  it  impossible  to  present 
"  the  meat  and  drink  offerings."  Hence  the  priests 
had  reason  to  mourn ;  and  Judah,  in  danger  of 
losing  the  visible  emblems  of  the  presence  of  his 
God,  is  fitly  compared  to  the  young  wife  who  had 
lost  her  husband.  These  offerings  could  not  be 
presented  l>eeause  everything  was  destroyed.  [Tins 
corn,  wine,  and  oil  were  essential  ingredients  of 
these  offerings,  and  every  sacrifice  would  be  imper 
feet  without  them.  The  locusts  and  the  drought 
combined  must  also  have  caused  a  great  dearth  of 
the  animals  used  in  sacrifice.  —  F.] 

Vers.  11-12.  Be  ashamed,  ye  husbandmen, — 
from  the  sons  of  men.  The  husbandmen  and 
vinedressers  are  next  addressed.  The  worst  feat- 
ure of  the  desolation,  already  mentioned,  is  not 
again  noticed  until  we  come  to  ver.  13.     In  ver. 

11,    JlBJ^Qh,   !)VV»n    are  imperfects.      B^nh, 

from  E*,;D  (perhaps  to  distinguish  it  from  tt7^2in 

the  Hiphil  of  E?5*i  here  without  the  1  which  pre- 
cedes and  follows  it),  to  be  ashamed,  to  grow  pale. 
Going  into  their  fields  and  finding  nothing  there, 
they  are  ashamed. 

Ver.  12  adds  the  reason  for  their  lamentation. 
Besides  the  vine  and  the  fig,  other  noble  trees  are 
mentioned  which  may  have  been  under  the  special 
care  of  the  vine-dresser ;  as  well  as  the  trees  of  the 

field  generally.    ~\WW  W'D.h  here  also  the  Hiph. 

of  W^,  to  grow  paler.  Joy  becomes,  as  it  were, 
ashamed ;  she  withdraws  herself,  and  is  no  more 
seen. 

Vers.  13-17.  Gird  yourselves  and  lament  ye 
Priests,  —  the  corn  is  withered.  The  discourse 
returns  to  what  had  been  complained  of  in  ver.  9, 
as  the  worst  feature  of  the  calamity,  namely,  the 
inability  to  offer  sacrifices.  Here  (ver.  13)  the 
priests  are  again  called  upon  to  lament  the  want 
of  materials  for  the  temple  service.  "Gird  youi- 
selves,"  i.  e.,  with  sackcloth  or  hair-cloth.  "  Pass 
the  night,"  t.  p.,  even  in  the  night-time  their 
lamentations  on  this  account  should  continue. 
[Thev  should  weep  between  the  court  and  the  ai 
tar.  "See  1  Kings  xxi.  27.  There  was  nothing 
strange  in  this  direction,  for  there  -*as  no  inter- 
mission in  the  temple  service  by  day  or  night.  See 
Ps.  exxxiv.  1.  —  E.|  "Ministers  of  my  God," 
the  God  whose  prophet  I  am.  [The  suffix  of  the 
first  person  shows  that  the  prophet,  on  the  one 
hand,  stood  apart  from  the  priests,  and  on  the 
other,  stood  in  a  very  near  relation  to  God  as  his 
organ,  and  therefore  elevated  fir  above  all  other 
ranks    and  conditions  of  men.  —  Wunschc.1     F.j 

1  [Wiinsche  thinks  that  this  circumstance  shows  that 
Joel  c<mi|J  not  have  belonged  to  die  priestly  order.  Bik 
this  would  be  overstraining  the  sen*  of  "  my  "  —  F] 


CHAPTER  1. 


13 


The  phrase  "your  God,"  is  immediately  afterward 
used,  and  repeated  in  ver.  14,  hence  it  must  not 
l>e  supposed  that  the  prophet  intended,  or  was 
obliged  to  separate  himself  wholly  from  the  priests. 
There  must  be  fasting  as  well  as  lamentation. 
This  was  to  be  observed  not  by  the  priests  alone  ; 
on  the  contrary,  the  whole  people  must  be  assem- 
bled in  the  temple,  and  there  in  the  midst  of  these 
masses  the  priests  should  cry  unto  the  Lord. 
"  Sanctify  a  fast,"  because  fasting  was  held  to  be, 
in  the  popular  estimation,  a  holy,  religious  service. 

rm27  fcTTJJ.  The  word  rHXg  ordinarily  de- 
notes a  religious  assembly,  one  to  ohserve  a  great 
festival.  Fiirst  thinks  that  it  comes  from  "1?37, 
tD  fix,  tc  settle,  i.  <?.,  a  fixed  time,L  hence  to  pro- 
claim a  fast  day.  The  "  old  men,"  —  not  the 
elders  in  the  official  sense  of  the  term,  as  one 
might  perhaps  infer  from  the  E.  V.  —  who  had 
been  called  upon  (ver.  2)  to  testify  that  no  such 
calamity  had  ever  before  happened,  must  be  pres- 
ent in  this  assembly,  as  well  as  those  who  are  to 

hear  their  testimony.  P?*,  to  cry  out  as  an  ex- 
pression of  want,  or  distress.  The  substance  of 
this  "  cry,"  or  complaint,  is  presented  in  the  verses 
that  immediately  follow.  This  complaint  probably 
extends  as  far  as  ver.  17,  in  which  the  desolation  of 
the  land  is  set  forth  as  the  ground  of  the  lamenta- 
tion. Ver.  18  seems  to  begin  a  new  section,  in 
which  the  cries  of  the  lower  animals  are  repre- 
sented as  mingled  with  the  complaints  of  men. 

Ver.  15.  Alas  for  the  day,  i.  e.,  the  present  time 
of  desolation.  This  cry  of  distress  is  caused  by  the 
nearness  of  the  day  of  the  Lord.  The  character 
of  this  day  may  be  learned  from  its  results.  It  is 
close  at  hand ;  it  is  coming  as  a  desolating  scourge 
from  the  Almighty,  and  its  effect  will  be  such  as 
to  show  that  it  could  come  only  from  Him.  That 
this  terrible  state  of  things  had  already  begun  is 
evident  from  ver.  16.  The  meat  is  cut  off;  the 
voice  of  joy  and  gladness  is  no  longer  heard  in  the 
temple.  Why  ?  Because  it  is  not  possible  to  pre- 
sent there  the  usual  thank-offerings.  Besides  the 
invasion  of  the  locusts  which  had  eaten  up  every 
green  thing,  there  was  an  unusual  drought  (ver. 
18)  which  had  greatly  intensified  the  calamity 
that  had  befallen  Judah.  In  consequence  of  these 
things  the  granaries  were  empty,  the  barns  had 
gone  to  ruin,  for  the  corn  had  failed.  The  ques- 
tion arises,  how  is  the  passage  from  ver.  13  and 
enwards  to  be  viewed.  It  is  commonly  taken  to 
he  a  new  section,  the  subject  of  which  is  the  call 
to  repentance.  Tvei!  thus  explains  its  connection 
with  the  preceding  context :  "  Lamentation  and 
mourning  alone  will  not  bring  release  from  the  ca- 
lamity :  with  these  must  be  conjoined  repentance 
and  prayer  to  Jehovah,  who  can  avert  every  evil." 
But  though  this  view  seems  to  be  favored  by  vers. 
14,  15,  it  really  mistakes  the  prophet's  train  of 
thought.  The  call  to  repentance  does  not  come  for- 
mally into  view  until  ch.  ii.  1 2,  though  the  way  had 
been  prepared  for  it,  ii.  1.  Now  the  description  of 
the  day  of  the  Lord  in  ii.  2  has  a  relation  to  what 
is  said  in  i.  15,  so  that  the  call  to  repentance  may 
be  said  to  have  its  root  and  nothing  more,  in  this 
earlier  section.  The  special  design  of  ch.  i.  is  to 
lay  a  foundation  for  what  is  to  follow,  by  exhibit- 
ing the  magnitude  of  Judah's  distress,  and  the  spe- 
cial reason  for  repentance.  The  intensity  of  the 
mourning  showed  the  magnitude  of  the  judgment. 

1  [The  etymology  of  the  word  is  right,  but  the  sense 
which  Furst  suggests  is  an  arbitrary  one.  and  does  not  ac- 
•ord  with    its  evident  meaning   in   the   many    passages   in 


The  priests  (ver.  13)  and  the  people  at  large  (ver 
15)  are  alike  called  upon  to  recognize  the  judg- 
ment, and  to  return  to  God  who  had  sent  it.  This 
passage  and  ch.  ii.  15  seem  to  be  exactly  alike  in 
purport,  but  there  are  differences  between  them 
which  should  not  be  overlooked.  They  differ  in 
regard  to  the  motive  and  the  object  of  the  proposed 
fasting  and  humiliation.  In  ch.  ii.  15  the  priests 
are  charged  to  call  a  solemn  assembly,  because  in 
this  way  they  might  hope  for  God's  mercy.  In  ch. 
i.  14  the  ground  of  lamentation  is  the  suspension 
of  sacrifices,  which  not  only  affected  the  public 
worship  of  God  in  the  temple  as  conducted  by  the 
priesthood,  but  also  the  immediate  interests  of  the 
people  themselves.  They  also  differ  in  the  object 
proposed.  In  ch.  ii.  15  the  priests  in  the  people's 
name  and  behalf  beseech  the  mercy  of  the  Lord. 
In  vers.  14,  15  they  cry  to  Him,  "Alas."  They 
bring  their  complaint  before  the  Lord,  because  this 
great  calamity  bears  upon  their  relation  to  Him  as 
his  ministers,  depriving  them  of  the  means  for 
carrying  on  divine  service,  and  hence  they  cry  out, 
"  the  day  of  the  Lord  is  near."  So  thorough  is 
the  desolation  that  one  may  well  say  "  the  day  of 
the  Lord  is  at  hand."  Things  have  this  look. 
But  as  yet  there  is  no  word  about  repentance,  con- 
fession of  sin,  and  return  to  God.  The  calamity, 
in  its  unequaled  magnitude,  and  far-reaching  ef- 
fects, just  now  tills  the  prophet's  mind.  He  nat- 
urally regards  it  as  coming  from  God's  hand,  but 
he  here  says  nothing  about  the  cause  of  it.  The 
reason  for  deeming  it  a  divine  infliction  is  only 
implied  in  the  connection  between  the  devastation 
and  what  the  day  of  the  Lord  would  bring. 

Vers.  17,  18  show  that  the  prophet  is  not  yet 
exhorting  the  people,  but  is  still  describing  the 
.^reut  calamity.  It  would  be  strange,  therefore,  for 
him  to  introduce  in  ver.  13  a  topic  so  entirely  new, 
as  repentance.  Nor  do  we  find  in  these  verses  the 
proper  motives  for  such  an  exercise.  Logically, 
then,  these  two  passages  are  quite  distinct,  the  one 
being  a  call  to  lamentation,  and  the  other  a  call 
to  repentance.  When  the  prophet,  in  i.  14  and  ii. 
15,  exhorts  the  priests  to  appoint  a  fast  and  call 
a  solemn  assembly,  he  does  not  mean  that  this 
should  be  done  twice,  at  two  different  times.  The 
one  call  is  simply  a  repetition  of  the  other,  but  in 
a  different  sense.  He  wishes  the  people  to  fast, 
and  to  meet  in  the  temple,  to  mourn  there  with 
the  priests,  and  that  they  should  also  manifest 
their  penitence  by  prayet  for  mercy  offered  by  the 
priests  as  their  representatives. 

Vers.  1 8-20.  How  do  the  beasts  groan,  —  the 
pastures  of  the  wilderness.  The  beasts  of  the 
field  must  suffer  equally  with  men.  This  fact  is 
used  to  illustrate  the  magnitude  of  the  calamity. 
But  as  these  dumb  animals  cannot  describe  their 
sufferings,  the  prophet  himself  becomes  their  inter- 
preter, and  as  if  sharing  their  distress,  exclaims, 
To  Thee,  O  Jehovah,  do  I  cry  —  for  help.  That 
this  appeal  is  in  the  name  of  the  beasts  of  the  field 
is  evident  from  ver.  19.  The  flame,  the  fire,  vers. 
19,  20  —  the  fierce  heats  that  produced  the  drought. 
The  beasts  include  domestic  and  wild  animals. 

THEOLOGICAL. 

I.  We  may  here  discuss  the  question  whether 
the  visitation  of  the  locusts  is  to  be  regarded  as  an 
allegorical  prediction  of  an  invasion  of  the  land  by 
a  hostile  people,  as  most  of  the  older  expositors, 

which  it  occurs.  It  has  the  same  sense  here  as  in  Ler. 
xxiii.  3-6  ;  Num.   van.  35  ;  Deut.  xvi.  8  ;  2  Chron.  vii.  1 

Neh.  viii.  18.  —  F.] 


14 


JOEL. 


and  more  recently  Hengstenberg  and  Havernick 
take  it  to  be.  They  think  that  the  prophecy  of  the 
desolation  of  the  land  begins  in  chap.  i.  If  this  be 
bo,  as  there  is  no  formal  mention  of  the  future,  we 
must  suppose  that  the  prophet  sees  the  approach 
of  the  calamity  so  vividly,  that  he  pictures  the  fu- 
ture as  a  present  reality.  While  this  view  may  be 
admissible,  it  is  not  natural.  On  its  face,  the  text 
describes  not  a  future,  but  a  present  fact,  and  there 
is  no  exegetical  necessity  for  assigning-  to  it  any 
other  sens?.  We  may  also  remark  that  the  call  to 
the  old  ni.-n  to  testify  whether  such  a  thing  had 
happened  in  their  day,  and  to  the  people  generally 
to  transmit  the  account  of  it  to  their  children, 
would  have  no  significance,  if  the  event  were  a  fu- 
ture one.  Chap.  i.  certainly  describes  a  devasta- 
tion that  had  actually  happened,  and  as  no  ibreign 
foe  had  as  yet  invaded  the  land,  it  must  have  been 
caused  by  locusts  and  drought.  It  needs  no  proof 
that  the  word  "  people"  (ver.  6)  does  not  necessa- 
rily denote  a  real  nation.  Again,  the  devastation 
caused  by  locusts  would  be  an  inadequate  type  of 
an  invasion  of  the  land,  since  one  of  the  essential 
features  of  the  latter  would  be  wanting,  namely, 
the  shedding  of  blood.  The  picture  of  the  calam- 
ity in  no  way  suggests  the  terrors  caused  by  an 
inroad  of  foreign  foes.  The  chapter  simply  treats 
of  the  damage  done  to  the  products  of  the  earth, 
and  the  complaints  of  men  in  consequence  of  it.  — 
But  as  regards  chap,  ii.,  the  question  whether  the 
visitation  of  locusts  is  to  be  taken  in  an  allegorical 
sense,  is  not  so  easily  settled.  Here  the  coming  of 
"  the  day  of  the  Lord  "  is  for  the  first  time  dis- 
tinctly announced,  and  in  this  connection  there  is 
a  renewed  mention  of  the  destruction  caused  by 
locusts  and  drought.  That  this  latter  event  should 
be  made  the  theme  of  a  prophetic  discourse,  is  no 
way  surprising,  because  Holy  Scripture  teaches  us 
that  all  public  calamities  are  divine  dispensations 
designed  to  awaken  men  to  a  sense  of  their  sins, 
and  to  bring  them  to  repentance.  What  more 
natural,  then,  than  that  the  prophets  should,  in 
God's  name,  threaten  such  calamities,  and  when 
tbey  did  come,  interpret  and  apply  them  so  as  to 
arouse  the  people  to  penitence,  so  that  they  might 
escape  still  heavier  judgments  ?  A  clear  illustra- 
tion of  this  is  found  in  Amos  vi.  6,  and  as  he  closely 
follows  Joel,  we  may  regard  it  as  settled  that  the 
latter  prophet  had  these  calamities  before  his  mind. 
But  the  prophet  is  a  poet  as  well  as  a  preacher  of 
repentance ;  and  so  he  presents  a  most  vivid  poetic 

Sicture  of  the  great  misfortune  which  had  befallen 
udah.  In  its  surpassing  magnitude,  God's  chas- 
tising hand  was  all  the  more  manifestly  displayed, 
and  his  voice  was  all  the  more  distinctly  heard 
calling  his  people  to  repent. 

2.  The  memory  of  extraordinary  events  should 
be  preserved  in  the  popular  mind.  They  thus  be- 
come a  tradition,  or  a  history.  Thus  only  can 
there  be  a  continuous  life  in  the  case  of  individuals, 
of  families,  and  of  nations.  This  basis  of  history, 
namely,  the  remembrance  of  the  experience  of  for- 
mer generations,  in  the  case  of  Israel  is  essentially 
a  religious  one.  Here,  events  are  manifestations 
of  God,  —  of  his  mercy,  or  his  judgment.  As  such 
they  should  never  be  forgotten,  in  order  that  the 
revelation  of  God  to  the  consciousness  of  a  nation 
may  be  maintained  in  an  ever-living  freshness. 

3.  Terrible  as  is  the  scourge  which  strikes  at 
\he  means  of  subsistence  in  a  land,  in  the  prophet's 
eye  this  is  not  its  worst  result.  In  this  case,  for 
example,  the  greatest  evil  produced  by  it  was  the 
'oss  of  the  sacrifices  in  the  house  of  God.  The 
Temple  was  the  visible  sign  and  pledge  of  God's 


dwelling  in  the  midst  of  Israel  as  his  people.  But 
it  was  such  only  while  divine  worship  was  kept  ur. 
in  it,  according  to  the  due  order,  by  the  priests 
as  the  representatives  of  the  people.  The  daily 
morning  and  evening  sacrifice  formed  an  essential 
part  of  this  service  ;  and  on  its  continuance  de- 
pended the  continuance  of  God's  covenant  relation 
to  his  people  [i.  e.,  not  really,  but  visibly  — b"  ]. 
The  suspension  of  the  one  suspended  tht  .ther. 
Hence  no  greater  misfortune  could  happen  to  Is- 
rael than  the  inability,  caused  by  famine,  to  supply 
the  Temple  with  the  materials  for  these  sacrifices. 
Joel,  realizing  fully  the  necessity  of  these  offerings 
for  the  purpose  before  named,  turns  to  the  priests, 
here  and  in  chap,  ii.,  entreating  them  to  call  upon 
God  themselves  and  to  endeavor  to  bring  the  peo- 
ple to  repentance.  Such,  in  any  case,  was  their 
present  duty.  How  it  might  be  in  the  future  will 
be  disclosed"  in  chap.  iii.  Meanwhile  it  is  manifest 
that  no  merely  formal  service  would  meet  the  exi- 
gency.   Only  true  repentance  would  avail. 

H0MILET1CAL. 

Vers.  1-2.  [Henry  :  The  greatness  of  the  judg- 
ment is  expressed  here  in  two  things:  (1.)  It  was 
sueh  as  could  not  be  paralleled  in  the  ages  that 
were  past;  in  history,  or  the  memory  of  any  liv- 
ing. Those  that  outdo  their  predecessors  in  sin, 
may  justly  expect  to  fall  under  greater  and  sorer 
judgments  than  any  of  their  predecessors  knew. 
(2.)  It  was  such  as  would  not  be  forgotten  in  the 
ages  to  come.  We  ought  to  transmit  to  posterity 
the  memorial  of  God's  judgments  as  well  as  of  his 
mercies.  —  F.] 

Ver.  3.  How  necessary  it  is  that  our  children 
should  be  taught  the  will  of  God,  and  what  his 
purpose  is  when  He  chastises  us,  so  that  the  fear 
of  his  holy  name  may  be  deepened  in  our  hearts. 

Ver  4.  Here  we  learn  the  omnipotence  of  God, 
and  how  vainly  human  power  is  arrayed  against 
Him,  since  He  can  employ  the  smallest  and  mean- 
est insect  to  do  his  will. 

Ver.  5.  Ye  drunkards  who  consume  God's 
kindly  gifts  in  intemperance  and  sin,  know  that 
your  sin  carries  a  curse  with  it,  and  that  God  can 
easily  cut  off  the  wine  from  your  mouths,  and 
punish  you  with  years  of  famine. 

[Pusey  :  All  sin  stupefies  the  sinner.  All  in- 
toxicate the  mind,  bribe  and  pervert  the  judgment, 
dull  the  conscience,  blind  the  soul,  and  make  it 
insensible  to  its  own  ills.  God  arouses  those  who 
will  be  aroused  by  withdrawing  from  them  the 
pleasures  wherein  they  offended  Him.  Weeping 
for  things  temporal  may  awaken  the  fear  of  lo.-ing 
things  eternal.  —  F.] 

Vers.  6-8.  The  Christian  Church  is  God's 
vineyard.  If  at  any  time  it  yields  not  good  fruit, 
but  only  wild  grapes,  it  shall  be  laid  waste. 

[Robinson  :  Prevailing  sins  are  often  visited 
with  corresponding  judgments.  The  Lord  in  his 
righteous  dealings  withholds  tho.se  gifts  of  his 
providence  which  have  been  abused.  He  takes 
from  an  ungodly  people  the  means  of  gratifying 
their  lusts,  and  leads  them  to  repentance  by  afflic- 
tions which  are  not  capriciously  ordered,  but  with 
exactest  wisdom  are  suited  to  their  character.  Be 
assured,  the  prosperity  of  the  Church  depends  not 
on  a  grand  ceremonial,  or  crowds  of  admiring 
devotees,  or  the  countenance  of  the  state,  however 
desirable  these  things  may  be,  but  only  on  the  fa- 
vor of  God,  whose  blessing,  and  whose  Spirit  wil' 
be  withdrawn,  if  we  defile  his  sanctuary  with  su 
perstitious  rites.  —  F.] 


CHAPTER  I. 


15 


Ver.  9.  No  greater  sorrow  can  befall  the  teach- 
ers and  hearers  of  the  Word,  than  the  cessation 
of  divine  worship.  Want  of  the  means  of  liveli- 
hood must  exert  a  very  prejudicial  influence  on 
the  public  service  of  God.  Under  the  old  economy 
there  would  be,  of  necessity,  a  failure  of  tithes  and 
offerings.  So  now,  when  people  have  a  hard  and 
constant  struggle  for  the  bare  means  of  subsist- 
ence, they  will  be  far  behind  others  in  knowledge  of 
the  truth,  in  the  proper  training  of  children,  and 
in  mutual  love. 

Ver.  10.  How  quickly  the  Lord  can  turn  all 
human  joy  into  sorrow  '  How  comes  it  then,  O 
sinner,  that  thou  cleavest  so  closely  to  temporal 
things  which  may  be  taken  away  at  any  moment  ? 
What  reason  have  we  to  praise  the  goodness  of  the 
Lord,  who  gives  us  fruit  fit  seasons,  and  fills  our 
hearts  with  gladness  1 

Ver.  11.  Husbandmen  are  too  apt  to  desire  the 
blessings  of  the  field  through  avarice,  or  for  the 
sake  of  their  own  carnal  enjoyment.  Therefore 
God  sometimes  sends  them  a  sad  instead  of  a  joy- 
ful harvest-time. 

Vers.  9-12.  [Scott  :  We  are  so  dependent  upon 
God  in  everything,  that  no  human  wisdom  or  power 
can  provide  plenty  when  He  pleases  to  send  scar- 
city ;  without  his  rain,  the  seed  even  must  perish, 
the  trees  of  the  field  must  wither,  and  all  our  tem- 
poral joys  must  sicken  and  die,  and  such  judg- 
ments are  emblems  of  the  great  day  of  retribution. 
How  stupid  then  are  sinners  who  are  insensible 
under  such  judgments,  or  only  mourn  with  a  re- 
bellious and  unhumbled  sorrow. 

Puset  :  The  vine  is  the  richness  of  divine 
knovledge,  the  fig  the  sweetness  of  contemplation 
and  the  joyousness  in  things  eternal.  Well  is  the 
life  of  the  righteous  likened  to  a  palm,  in  that  the 
palm  below  is  rough  to  the  touch,  and  in  a  manner 
enveloped  in  a  dry  bark,  but  above  it  is  adorned 
with,  fruit,  fair  even  to  the  eye ;  below  it  is  com- 
pressed by  the  enfoldings  of  its  bark,  above  it  is 
spread  out  in  amplitude  of  beautiful  greenness. 
For  so  is  the  life  of  the  elect,  —  despised  below,  beau- 
tiful above.  —  F.] 

Vers.  13-14.  Who  shall  blame  God's  ministers 
when  they  complain  of  the  declension  of  religion  ? 
Who  would  not  weep  when  he  thinks  of  the  miser- 
able condition  of  many  churches. 

Fasting  is  one  of  the  ways  of  deepening  and 
manifesting  repentance,  sanctioned  by  Holy  Scrip- 
ture. When  properly  observed,  the  result  will  be 
to  stimulate  us  to  cry  more  earnestly  to  God.  Un- 
der great  calamities,  men  should  he  taught  to  look 
to  God,  not  only  in  a  general  way,  but  they  should 
be  told  to  seek  Him  in  special  and  appropriate  exer- 
cises of  penitcrce  and  prayer. 

[Henry  :  They  that  are  employed  in  holy  things 
are  therein  God's  ministers,  and  on  Him  they  at- 
tend. A  people  may  be  filling  up  the  measure  of 
iheir  iniquity  apace,  and  yet  may  keep  up  a  course 
)f  external  performances  in  religion.  As  far  as 
any  public  trouble  is  an  obstruction  to  the  course 
of  religion,  it  is  to  be  on  that  account  more  than 
any  other,  sadly  lamented,  especially  by  the  Lord's 
ministers. 

Puset  :  The  fast  which  the  Lord  approveth  is 
that  which  lifteth  up  to  Him  hands  full  of  alms- 
rlseds,  which  is  passed  with  brotherly  love,  which 
h  seasoned  with  piety.  What  thou  subtractest 
from  thyself,  bestow  on  another,  that  thy  needy 
neighbor's  flesh  may  be  recruited.  — F.] 

Vers.  15-18.  When  God  punishes,  He  seeks  our 
improvement;  but  if  this  does  not  follow,  lie  will 


utterly  destroy.  —  The  sufferings  of  the  lower  an- 
imals are  caused  by  the  sin  of  man. 

[Henry.  Though  it  is  common  for  the  heart 
not  to  rue  what  the  eye  sees  not,  yet  that  heart  is 
hard  indeed  which  does  not  humble  itself  when 
God's  judgments  are  before  the  eyes.  If  vhen  God's 
hand  is  lifted  up.  men  will  not  see,  when  his  ha_,d  is 
laid  on  they  shall  see.  —  The  house  of  our  God  is  the 
proper  place  for  joy  and  gladness  ;  when  I  )avid  goes 
to  the  altar  of  God,  it  is  to  God  my  exceeding  joy ; 
but  when  joy  and  gladness  are  cut  off  from  (rod's 
house,  either  by  corruption  of  holy  things,  or  the 
persecution  of  holy  persons,  when  serious  godliness 
decays,  and  love  waxes  cold,  then  it  is  time  to  cry 
to  the  Lord,  time  to  cry  Alas !  —  F.] 

Vers.  19,  20  It  is  one  of  the  special  duties  of  a 
teacher  of  the  Word  to  be  constant  in  prayer  to 
God.  —  God  hears  the  cries  even  of  dumb  animals. 
Then,  0  my  soul,  trust  Him  in  all  thy  troubles, 
and  know  that  He  will  listen  to  thy  cries  as  much 
more  readily  than  to  theirs,  as  thou  art  of  more 
value  than  they.  The  prophet,  in  his  appeal  to 
God,  is  not  ashamed  to  be  found  in  fellowship  with 
the  beasts  of  the  field.  So  the  Divine  Spirit,  by 
way  of  arousing  our  faith,  points  us  to  the  fact  that 
God  feeds  the  young  ravens,  and  gives  the  cattle 
their  food.  Yet  how  readily  can  God  turn  all  our 
joys  into  deepest  griefs  !  How  unexpectedly  can 
He  do  this,  and  by  what  feeble  means  !  How  pre- 
posterous, then,  for  any  to  regard  their  earthly 
possessions  as  secure,  and  to  boast  of  them  !  How 
plainly  God  shows  us  that  we  live  only  in  and 
through  his  blessing,  that  everything  we  possess  is 
his  gift.  How  thankful  we  should  be  when  He  per- 
mits us  to  enjoy  fulli  what  He  has  bestowed  upor 
us  ! 

[Henry  :  The  prophet  stirs  them  up  to  c"  to 
God. 

( 1 )  By  his  own  ex  ample.  He  would  not  put 
them  upon  doing  that  vdiich  he  would  not  resolve 
to  do  himself;  nay,  whether  they  would  do  it  or 
no,  he  would. 

Note.  —  If  God's  ministers  cannot  prevail  tc 
affect  others  with  the  discoveries  of  divine  wrath 
yet  they  ought  to  be  themselves  affected  with  them 
if  they  cannot  bring  otlers  to  cry  to  God,  yet 
they  must  themselves  be  mveh  in  prayer.  In  times 
of  trouble  we  must  notonh  pray,  but  cry,  must  be 
fervent  and  importunate  in  prayer ;  and  to  God, 
from  whom  both  the  destruction  is,  and  the  salva- 
tion must  be,  ought  our  cry  always  to  be  directed 

(2)  By  the  example  of  thfl  inferior  creatures. 
The  beasts  of  the  Jield  do  not  only  groan,  but  they 
cry  unto  Thee.  They  appeal  to  thy  pity,  according 
to  their  capacity,  and  as  if,  though  they  are  not 
capable  of  a  rational  and  revealed  religion,  yet  they 
had  some  dependence  upon  God  b\  natural  instinct, 
Much  more  will  He  put  a  favorable  constructio* 
on  the  groanings  of  his  own  children,  though 
sometimes  so  feeble,  that  they  cannc*.  be  utUred. 

Scott  :  God  will  hear  the  united  prayers  of  the 
remnant  of  his  servants,  and  often  for  their  sake* 
will  rescue  a  guilty  nation  from  impending  destruc 
tion. 

Pdset  :  0  Lord,  to  Thee  will  I  cry.  This  is  tna 
only  hope  left,  and  contains  all  hopes.  From  the 
Lord  was  the  infliction  ;  in  Him  is  the  healing 
The  prophet  appeals  to  God  by  his  own  Name, 
the  faithful  Fulfiller  of  his  promises,  Hirn  who  Is, 
and  who  had  promised  to  hear  all  who  call  upon 
Him.  Let  others  call  to  their  idols,  if  they  would, 
or  remain  stupid,  the  prophet  would  call  unto 
God,  and  that  earnestly.  —  F.] 


!6  JOEL. 


SECTION  II. 


Tht  Day  of  the  Lord  cometh  !    Repentance  alone  can  avail  to  meet  it     Hence  the  D+. 
mandfor  a  Day  of  Public  Humiliation. 

Chapter  II.  1-17. 

1  Blow  the  trumpet1  in  Zion, 

Sound 2  an  alarm  on  my  holy  mountain.3 
Let  all  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  tremble, 
Because  the  day  of  Jehovah  cometh,4 
It  is  nigh  at  hand. 

2  A  day  of  darkness  and  of  gloom,0 

A  day  of  clouds,  and  of  thick  mists,6 

Like  the  morning 7  dawn  spread  upon  the  mountains  ; 

So  shall  come  a  people  numerous  and  mighty, 

The  like  of  which  hath  never  been  before, 

And  the  like  of  which  shall  not  come  again, 

In  the  years  of  many  generations. 

8  A  fire  devoureth  before  them, 
And  behind  them  a  flame  burnetii ; 
Before  them  the  land  is  as  the  garden  of  Eden,6 
And  behind  them  a  desolate  wilderness, 
And  nothing  shall  escape  them. 

4  Their  appearance  is  like9  the  appearance  of  horses, 
And  like  horsemen  shall  they  run. 

5  Like  the  noise  of  chariots,  on  the  tops  of  mountains  M  they  shall  leap 
Like  the  sound  of  a  flame  of  fire  devouring  stubble. 

Like  a  strong  people  set  in  battle  array. 

6  Before  them  the  people  n  are  in  pain, 
All  faces  gather  paleness.12 

7  They  shall  run  like  mighty  men, 

They  shall  climb  the  wall  like  men  of  war ; 
And  they  shall  march,  each  one  in  his  way, 
And  they  shall  not  turn  aside  1S  from  their  paths. 

8  And  no  one  shall  press  upon  another, 
They  shall  march  each  one  in  his  path ; u 

And  though  they  rush15  upon  the  dart,  they  shall  not  to"  wounded. 

9  They  shall  run  to  and  fro  In  the  city, 
They  shall  run  upon  the  wall ; 
They  shall  climb  upon  the  houses, 

They  shall  enter  behind  the  windows  like  a  thief. 

10  Before  them  the  earth  trembleth, 
The  heavens  quake, 

The  sun  and  the  moon  shall  be  darkened, 
And  the  stars  withdraw  their  brightness, 

11  And  Jehovah  shall  utter  his  voice  before  his  host, 
For  his  army  is  very  great, 

For  he  that  executes  his  word  is  mighty ; 

For  great  is  the  day  of  Jehovah,  and  very  terrible. 

And  who  can  endure  it? 


CHAPTER  II.    1-17.  17 


12  Yet  even  now,16  saith  Jehovah,17 
Turn  unto  me  with  all  your  heart, 

With  fasting,  and  with  weeping,  and  with  lamentation, 

13  And  rend  your  heart,  and  not  your  garments. 
And  return  to  Jehovah  your  God, 

For  He  is  gracious  and  merciful, 
Slow  to  anger  and  of  great  kindness, 
And  repenteth  Him  of  the  evil. 

14  Who  knoweth  ? 18    He  may  return  and  repent 
And  leave  a  blessing  behind, 

A  meat-offering  and  a  drink-offering 
For  Jehovah  your  God. 

15  Blow  the  trumpet  in  Zion, 
Sanctify  a  fast, 

Call  a  solemn  assembly ; 

16  Gather  the  people, 
Sanctify  a  congregation, 
Assemble  the  old  men, 
Gather  the  children, 

And  those  that  suck  the  breasts  ; 

Let  the  bridegroom  desert  his  chamber, 

And  the  bride  her  closet ; 

17  Between  the  porch  and  the  altar, 
Let  the  priests  weep, 

The  ministers  of  Jehovah, 

And  say, 

Spare  thy  people,  0  Jehovah, 

And  give  not  thy  heritage  to  reproach, 

That  the  heathen  should  rule  over 19  (or  use  a  bye-word  against)  them 

Wherefore  should  they  say  among  the  heathen  ( —  the  peoples) 

Where  is  their  God  ? 


CRITICAL    AND   TEXTUAL. 
I  Yer.  1.  —  The  "nQltZ?  of  the  Hebrews,  according  to  Jerome,  was  a  metal  instrument  in  the  shape  of  a  horn,  and 

had  a  tone  of  extraordinary  power.     Its  root,  "IStt?,   to  be  bright,  refers  either  to  the  metallic  glitter  of  the  instru- 
ment, or  its  clear  ringing  sound. 

3  Ver.  1.  —  "And  sound."  And  is  omitted  In  the  Vulg.,  Sept.,  Arab.,  Chald.,  and  five  MSS.  omit  1.  There  is  more 
energy  in  the  passage  without  it. 

8  Ver.  1.  —  "  Holy  mountain.''''  "'tEHp  is  a  noun,  lit.,  "mountain  of  my  holiness."  The  adject,  tijilp  is  only  ap- 
plied to  persons  and  never  to  things. 

*  Ver  1.  —  "  The  day—  cometh."     The  perf.  S3  is  used  as  the  present  to  express  the  certainty  of  the  event. 

6  Ver.  2.  —  «  Darkness  and  gloom."     H  7>EN  is  often  connected  with  Tftt^n,  to  express  a  kind  of  climax.     Ito  km* 

U  not  used  in  Heb.,  but  we  find  it  in  the  Arab.    .  Ljf. 

«  Ver.  2.  —  "  Oouds  and  thick  mists."  ?D^V,  formed  apparently  from  Pp"}37,  a  cloud,  and  bDtf ,  to  be  dark, 
corresponding  to  the  Greek  bpfyvt).       Here,  too,"  a  gradation  is  marked. 

7  Ver.  2.  —  "  Like  the  morning  daivn,"  etc.  The  Vulg.  renders  it,  «  as  the  morning  spread  upon  the  mountains,  a 
people  much  and  mighty,"  but  the  accents  will  not  admit  of  this.  Newcome  has  it,  "  like  the  dusk,"  but  this  suggestj 
evening  rather  than  morning.  It  properly  means  the  gray  of  the  morning,  while  the  sun  is  still  far  below  the  horizon, 
tt  is  one  of  the  names  of  the  Nile,  from  the  turbid  color  of  its  water. 

8  Ver.  S.  — "  Eden."  \T2,  an  old  Semit.  word,  found  also  in  various  dialects  in  the  sense  of  pleasure,  like  the  Or. 
i&ovti.  In  the  sing,  with  zere  on  the  penult.,  it  always  means  Paradise.  With  seghol  on  the  penult.,  it  is  the  name  of  a 
•are  of  Mesopotamia.     In  the  plur.  form  it  denotes  pleasures.     Ps.  xxxvi.  9  ;  2  Sam.  i.  24. 

8  Ver.  4.  —  "  Is  like."     3  is  here  used  irapa/3oAt/eu«  compar.,  and  not,  as  Theodoret  supposes,  en-iTcm/cu;  intens. 

15  Ver.  5.—"  On  the  tops  of  mountains,"  etc.      ",LPSTv3J  must  be  connected  with   fVTfyH'),   they  shall  leap,  an« 

pot  with     ^lp3  ;   the  latter  union  U  forbidden  by  the  accents,  and  by  the  use  of  the  word  «  chariots,"  whose  "  note* 
■  only  heard  on  level  groan  1. 


18 


JOEL. 


11  Yer.  6.  —  "  Peoples."  The  plural  form  Q^ffil?  is  used,  not  as  Credner  supposes,  with  reference  to  the  two  tribe* 
of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  but  limply  to  denote  people  generally. 

12  Ver.  6. "  Paleness."      ""11"7SQ  i3  variously  understood.     The  Sept.  render  the  clause  on  n-pos  Kaviiax^^K,  ai 

the  burning  of  a  pot.  The  Chald.,  Syr.,  Vulg.,  Arab.,  "  become  like  a  pot  or  have  the  blackness  of  a  pot."  But  there  if 
nothing  in  the  nature  of  the  thing,  or  in  the  etymology  of  the  word,  to  warrant  the  «  blackness"  of  our  E.  V  Cramer 
explains  rather  than  translates  the  words  :  "  all  faces  contract  their  muscles."  The  root  of  the  word  is  ~)S2,  to  be  beau- 
tiful  to  glow  :  and  it  literally  means  "  ruddiness."    This  gathers,  or  withdraws  itself,  and  the  countenance  becomes  pale. 

18  Ver.  7. "  They  shall  not  turn  aside."      'J:1t0^3?,,  is  variously  explained.     Many  expositors  take  it  in  the  sense  ol 

pervertere,  as  if  it  were  "pFlT^?,  to  bend.  Others  get  its  meaning  from  the  Arab.  Ja^Lo,  to  split,  or  divide.  On* 
MS.  De  Ross,  has  the  reading,  ^1103711'),  they  strike  not  out  behind,  like  horses.  The  sense  is,  they  move  in  a  cnmpao' 
tnass,  bending  neither  to  the  right  nor  the  left,  forwards  nor  backwards. 

14  Ver.  8.  —  "Each  one  in  his  path,"  lit.,  the  mighty  one,  "123,  used  here  poetically  for  t£7N. 

16  Ver.  8.  —  "  Though  they  rush,"  etc.  The  meaning  of  this  line  is  plain  enough,  f.  e.,  nothing  can  arrest  their  march  ; 
but  the  renderings  of  it  are  various,  growing  out  of  the  senses  given  to  IV 3.  De  Wette  renders  it :  "  Und  zwischen 
Waffen  stiirzen  sie  hindurch,  brechen  den  Zug  nicht  ab."  —  Wiinsche :  "Und  hi'nter dem  Wurfpiess  fallen  sie,  nicht  brechen 
tie  ab."     On  the  whole,  I  prefer  the  rendering  of  Tregelles  :  "  Though  they  rush,"  etc. 

16  Ver.  12.  —  "  Yet  even  now."     Credner,  without  reason,  supplies  a  512127  after  n.Pll7   021. 

17  Ver.  12.  —  "  Saith  Jehovah."     DW3  is  most  frequently  used  as  the  part.  pass,  constr.  =  "  the  voice  of  Jehovah  !».' 

18  Ver.  14.  —  "  Who  knoweth."  The  interrogative  particle  QS  is  omitted  here  as  in  Jon.  in.  9.  The  question  U 
expressed  only  by  the  tone.  Holzh.  takes  the  phrase  37  TP  *12  to  =  every  one  knows,  t.  e.,  it  is  quite  certain  ;  bat 
this  sense  is  too  absolute. 

19  Ver.  17.  —  "  Rule  over."  The  primary  meaning  of  7tt7tt  is  to  make  like,  and  in  its  nominal  form  it  has  the 
tense  of  similitude,  parable,  proverb,  song.  Scholars  have  been  a  good  deal  puzzled  how  to  reconcile  the  signification  ol 
making  like  and  ruling,  which  last  sense  the  word  undoubtedly  has  in  many  places.     When  used  in  this  last  sense  it  is 

usually  followed  by  2,  rarely  (Wiinsche  says  never)  by  737  or  7W.  Tregelles  renders  it  in  this  place,  "  to  sing  a  song 
of  derision,"  and  De  Wette,  "  spotter,"  which,  I  think,  the  context  fovor*.  Pusey  and  Wiinsche  insist  on  the  sense  e. 
•or  B.  V.  "role  over."  — F.] 


BXEQETICAL. 

This  portion  of  the  prophecy  consists  of  two 
puns.  The  first  is  contained  in  vers.  1-11,  in 
which  the  prophet  explains  more  fully  than  he  had 
before  done,  the  misery  that  was  coming  on  the 
land,  a  harbinger  of  the  great  and  terrible  day  of 
the  Lord.  The  second  part  includes  vers.  12-17, 
and  declares  that  timely  repentance  would  secure 
God's  gracious  help,  and  therefore  that  the  priests 
should  earnestly  deal  with  the  people  to  this  end. 

Ver.  1 .  Blow  the  Trumpet  in  Zion.  This  is 
a  call  to  the  priests.  They  must  give  a  signal  of 
alarm  from  Zion,  which  is  to  be  understood  not  in 
the  local  sense,  but  as  including  the  whole  of  Jeru- 
salem. Then  comes  the  more  precise  locality,  "  the 
holy  mountain."  The  design  of  this  signal  is  to 
arouse  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  and  to  apprise 
them  that  an  event  of  terrible  magnitude  is  close  at 
hand.  The  Day  is  the  judgment  day  of  the  Lord. 
There  is  '.  climax  in  the  clauses  announcing  its 
approach,  '  it  is  coming,"  "  it  is  near,"  t.  e.,  its 
coming  is  ot  an  event  of  the  far  distant  future, 
but  it  will  be  very  soon. 

Ver.  2.  The  Day  is  one  of  darkness.  Four 
terms  are  used  to  show  how  intense  it  will  be.  See 
Ex.  x.  22  ;  Daut.  iv.  11.  It  will  be  darker  than 
that  of  Egypt,  and  than  that  of  Sinai.  Here  the 
"  darkness"  is  to  be  understood  in  a  literal  sense, 
for  by  the  vast  swarms  of  locusts,  the  sun  would 
be  obscured  (ver.  10,  and  Exod.  xiv.  15).  That 
the  prophet  had  these  swarms  of  locusts  in  view 
is  evident  from  what  follows.     "^L^S  belongs  to 

the  following  2"2  D?.  As  the  early  morning 
aawns  upon  the  mountains,  so  this  "  people " 
•omcs.  "  This,"  says  Keil,  "  is  to  be  understood 
»f  the  shining  caused  by  the  reflected  rays  of  the 
mn    from   the   wings   of    a    swarm   of    locusts." 


[Some,  says  Dr.  Pusey,  have  thought  that  there  is 
here  an  allusion  to  the  appearance  which,  the  in 
habitants  of  Abyssinia  well  know,  precedes  the 
swarm  of  locusts.  A  sombre  yellow  light  is  cast 
upon  the  ground  from  the  reflection,  it  is  thought, 
of  their  yellow  wings.  But  that  appearance  seems 
to  be  peculiar  to  that  country.  —  F.]  The  image 
naturally  exhibits  the  suddenness  and  universality 
of  the  darkness,  when  men  looked  for  light.  As 
to  the  meaning  of  Tlt^,  expositors  are  greatly 
divided.  Bauer  thinks  that  the  points  of  compari- 
son are  the  quickness  with  which,  and  the  wide 
extent  over  which  the  dawn  spreads  itself.  Cred- 
ner's  view  is,  that  as  the  morning  light  overspread- 
ing the  hills  is  a  symbol  and  pledge  of  life  and 
joy,  so  these  clouds  shall  come  overspreading  the 
land  with  darkness  and  misery.  [Wiinsche  takes 
it  in  the  sense  of  the  "  morning  gray,"  i.  e.,  the 
time  when  the  morning  is  wrapped  in  a  sort  of 
darkish  or  dusky  gray ;  the  meaning  being,  that 
the  nature  of  this  "  day  "  will  be  made  known 
just  as  the  gray  dawn  of  morning  proclaims  the 
coming  day.  —  F.  |  There  hath  not  been  ever 
the  like.  The  phrase  seems  to  have  been  borrowed 
from  Exod.  x.  14, — a  passage  on  which  the 
prophet,  in  a  general  way,  seems  to  have  had  his 
eye,  — where  the  same  thing  is  said  of  the  plague 
of  locusts  sent  upon  Egypt. 

Ver.  3.  A  fire  devoureth.  This  description  is 
based  on  what  had  been  already  experienced, 
namely,  that  the  desolation  caused  by  locusts  had 
been  attended  usually  by  drought  and  terrible 
heat.  But  now  the  heat  grows  into  a  fierce  flame, 
analogous  to  the  awful  displays  when  God  re- 
vealed Himself  at  Sinai.  So  here,  the  army  of 
locusts  is  God's  host.  H^bc.  That  which  hat 
"  escaped,"  namely,  the  "  (ire,"  or  the  desolation 
caused  by  it,  has  not  remained  in  the  land.     [This 


CHAPTER  II.  l-'~. 


iy 


to  a  strained  sense.  The  exposition  of  Newcome, 
Pusey,  and  Wiinsche  is  more  natural  and  sensible. 
"  There  is  nothing  that  has  escaped  it,  i.  e.,  this 
army."  Pusey  adds,  "  the  word  being  used  else- 
where of  the  persons  who  escape,  —  captivity  or 
captives,  —  suggests  in  itself  that  we  should  not 
linger  by  the  type  of  the  locusts  only,  but  think 
cf  enemies  more  terrible,  wbo  destroy  men.  — F.] 

Vers.  4,  5.  Their  appearance — in  battle  ar- 
ray. The  entrance  of  this  fearful  host  is  de- 
scribed. The  head  of  the  locust  has  a  certain 
resemblance  to  that  of  the  horse.  Their  celerity 
of  movement  is  compared  to  that  of  horsemen  ; 
and  in  ver.  5,  the  noise  caused  by  their  leaping  is 
likened  to  that  made  by  chariots  on  rough  moun- 
tain roads,  so  that  their  appearance  is  somewhat 
similar  to  that  of  an  army  advancing  in  battle  ar- 
ray. Their  noise  in  devouring  plants  and  herbs 
is  also  compared  to  the  crackling  of  flames  in  a 
field  of  stubble.  [Pusey :  The  amazing  noise  of 
the  flight  of  locusts  is  likened  by  those  who  have 
heard  them,  to  all  sorts  of  deep  sharp  rushing 
sounds.  The  prophet  combines  purposely  things 
incompatible,  the  terrible  heavy  bounding  of  the 
scythed  chariot,  and  the  light  speed  with  which 
these  countless  hosts  should  in  their  flight  bound 
over  the  tops  of  the  mountains  where  God  had 
made  no  paths  for  man.  —  F.] 

Ver.  6.  Before  them  the  peoples,  etc.  D^p^ 
here  has  the  usual  sense  of  "  peoples,"  "  nations," 
since  the  day  of  the  Lord  would  not  be  confined 
to  one  country.  All  faces  lose  their  glowing  color, 
t.  e.,  the  blood  retires  from  the  cheeks,  so  that  they 
grow  pale.  V?i7  is  here  to  be  taken  in  the  sense 
of  HP^  in  ver.  10  and  iii.  15. 

Ver.  7.  They  shall  run,  etc.  With  resistless 
power  they  advance  and  march  toward  their  goal. 
They  run  to  attack.  In  like  manner  they  climb 
the  wall.  t0337  =  to  change  or  shift  the  way,  t.  c, 
to  turn  from  one's  way  and  go  into  that  of  an- 
other, so  that  the  latter  is  hindered.  [Pusey  : 
They  are  on  God's  message  and  they  linger  not. 
Men  can  mount  a  wall  few  at  a  time;  the  locusts 
scale  it  much  more  steadily,  compactly,  irresistibly. 
The  picture  unites  the  countless  multitude,  con- 
densed march,  and  entire  security  of  the  locusts 
with  the  might  of  warriors.  —  F.J 

Vers.  8-10.  And  no  one  shall  press,  etc. 
Those  behind  shall  not  press  upon  those  before. 
No  weapons  can  stop  the  advance  of  this  host ;  or 
arrest  its  march.  They  rush  through,  or  between, 
or  under  the  darts,  or  swords.  They  go  forward 
as  if  no  obstacles  were  in  their  way.  Of  course 
this  does  not  mean  that  any  attempt  was  actually 
made  to  oppose  their  progress,  but  simply  that  it 
would  be  vain  to  resist  them,  by  the  means  ordi- 
narily used  to  arrest  an  army  (ver.  9),  comp.  Ex. 
x.  6.  The  picture  in  vers.  7-9  is  perfectly  true  to 
nature.  Jerome  (in  loc.)  says,  "  We  have  our- 
selves lately  seen  this  very  thing  in  this  province 
(Palestine).  When  the  locusts  come  and  fill  the 
whole  space  betweeen  earth  and  sky,  they  fly  in 
perfect  order,  as  if  obedient  to  a  divine  command, 
so  that  they  look  like  the  squares  of  a  pavement. 
Each  one  holds  its  own  place,  not  diverging  from 
it  even  so  much  as  by  a  finger's  breadth.  To  these 
locusts  nothing  is  impenetrable,  fields,  meadows, 
trees,  cities,  houses,  even  their  most  secret  cham- 
bers." The  accounts  of  more  recent  observers 
agree  with  this  description.  There  is  a  design  in 
this  picture  so  elaborate  in  its  details.  The  more 
'  terrible  the  visitation  of  locusts  appears,  the  more 
eertain  would  it  be,  that  when  the  day  of  the  Lord 


came,  this  host  would  become  God's  instrument  in 
the  infliction  of  his  judgment.  What  follows  in 
ver.  10  is  fully  consonant  with  the  fact,  though 
there  is  some  rhetorical  amplification,  as  the 
prophet,  once  for  all,  sees  in  the  swarm  of  locusts 
not  a  mere  natural  phenomenon,  but  an  evidence 
of  the  coming  of  the  day  of  the  Lord.  The  view 
we  take  of  an  event  naturally  gives  a  certain  col- 
oring to  the  picture  of  it,  and  a  certain  climactic 
amplication  is  proper,  when  the  event  is  one  that 
surpasses  all  previous  experience.  Before  them, 
or  it,  i.  e.,  this  great  and  mighty  people.  The 
earth  trembles.  What  more  natural  than  that 
heaven  and  earth  should  be  terrified  by  such  a  host, 
—  one  so  dreadful  in  fact,  so  much  more  dreadful 
when  viewed  as  the  host  of  an  avenging  God  1 
This  most  awful  effect  cannot,  indeed,  be  ssen  or 
heard,  like  these  inarching  hosts  and  the  no:se  they 
produce ;  it  can  only  be  felt,  and  thus  all  the  wider 
scope  is  given  to  the  terrified  imagination.  The 
obscuration  of  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars  is  real, 
but  this  darkness  becomes  more  fearfully  impres- 
sive, since  the  locust  swarms  appear  as  a  tempest 
cloud  of  divine  wrath.  (Comp.  Jer.  xiii.  10  ;  Ezek. 
xii.  7  ;  Mark  xiii.  24.) 

Ver.  11.  And  Jehovah  shall  utter  his  voice. 
Probably  a  real  event  is  referred  to, — a  thunder- 
storm in  connection  with  the  coming  of  the  locusts. 
The  prophet  hears  the  thunder  not  so  much  with 
his  outward  ear  as  mentally,  recognizing  it  as  a 
manifestation  of  God.  Only  such  displays  of 
power  as  those  described  in  vers.  10,  11,  would  be- 
fit the  greatness  of  the  host  sent  to  do  Jehovah's 
will,  and  the  terribleness  of  the  day  of  the  Lord 
that  was  coming, — a  day  so  terrible  as  to  wring 
from  the  prophet  the  inquiry,  "  who  can  endure 
it  1  "     See  Jer.  x.  10  ;  Mai.  iii.  1. 

Vers.  12-17.  Yet  even  now,  etc.  Though 
the  anger  of  God  is  so  clearly  revealed  that  men 
may  see  his  day  coming,  yet  He  says,  Turn  unto 
me,  and  thus  points  out  the  way  in  which  his  an 
ger  may  be  averted.  If  they  repented,  they  would 
escape  these  judgments,  and  find  God  gracious 
With  all  your  heart.  This  is  the  most  essential 
thing,  and  so  is  named  first,  yet  this  hearty  re- 
pentance will  also  manifest  itself  outwardly.  But 
the  prophet  warns  the  people  that  a  merely  ex- 
ternal repentance  will  effect  nothing  (ver.  13), 
comp.  Ps.  li.  19 ;  Ezek.  xxxvi.  26.  Such  repent- 
ance, however,  as  that  described  in  vers.  12,  13, 
will  avail,  because  "He  is  gracious"  (Ex.  xxxiv. 
6 ;  2  Sam.  xxiv.  16).  Therefore  is  there  hope 
that  He  will  avert  his  judgments.  Who  know- 
eth.  That  God  is  such  as  He  is  here  described  is 
beyond  a  doubt,  but  whether,  under  present  cir- 
cumstances, He  will  display  his  mercy,  is  net  so 
certain.  This  depends  on  the  conduct  of  the  peo- 
ple, and  hence  the  prophet  would  have  them  to 
bear  in  mind,  that  pardon  would  not  come  to  them 
as  a  matter  of  course,  and  that  their  repentance 
must  not  be  of  an  easy  and  formal  kind.  He  will 
return.  Jehovah  is  conceived  of  as  on  his  way 
from  heaven  for  the  purpose  of  judgment;  but  He 
may  stop,  and  return  to  heaven.  Leave  behind 
Him,  i.e.,  when  He  returns  to  heaven  (Hos.  v.  5) 
A  blessing,  t.  e.,  an  abundant  harvest,  so  that 
there  may  be  no  lack  of  those  offerings,  the  mate- 
rials of  which  had  been  destroyed  by  the  locusts  (L 
9-13).  Instead  of  a  day  of  judgment  (involving 
a  greater  desolation  than  any  as  yet  experienced), 
there  was  hope  that  God  would  give  another  crop 
to  replace  the  one  destroyed  (ver.  5).  Since  re 
pentance  opened  such  prospects  of  blessing,  the 
priests  shou  d  s  punon  the  people  to  meet  for  tin 


20 


JOEL. 


purpose  of  humiliation  and  prayer,  and  they 
should  themselves,  in  the  name  of  the  people,  im- 
plore God's  mercy. 

Ver.  16  repeats  what  was  said  before  in  i.  14, 
tmt  more  in  detail.  Sanctify  a  congregation,  i. 
i .,  call  a  meeting  of  the  congregation  for  sacred 
purposes.  No  age  should  be  excepted,  because  the 
entire  people  deserved  punishment  and  needed  to 
repent.  Even  the  joy  of  the  bridegroom  and  the 
bride  must  give  place  to  penitential  mourning. 
What  the  priests  should  do,  when  the  people  were 
assembled,  is  defined  in  ver.  17.  They  shall  stand 
between  the  porch  and  the  altar,  i.  e.,  imme- 
diately before  the  entrance  to  the  sanctuary  and 
turning  toward  it,  they  should  pray  to  God,  ap- 
pealing to  Him  in  behalf  of  the  people  as  his  own 
covenant  people. 

[Pusey :  The  porch  in  this,  Solomon's  temple, 
.vas  in  fact  a  tower  in  front  of  the  Holy  of  holies, 
of  the  same  breadth  with  the  temple.  The  brazen 
altar  for  burnt-offerings  stood  in  front  of  it.  The 
space  between  the  porch  and  the  altar,  became  an 
inner  part  of  the  court  of  the  priests.  It  seems  to 
have  been  a  place  of  prayer  for  priests.  It  is 
spoken  of  as  an  aggravation  of  the  sins  of  those 
twenty-five  idolatrous  priests,  that  here,  where 
they  ought  to  worship  God,  they  turned  their 
backs  toward  the  temple  of  the  Lord  to  worship 
the  sun.  Here  Zechariah  was  standing,  when  the 
spirit  of  God  came  upon  him,  and  he  rebuked  the 
people,  and  they  stoned  him.  —  F.] 


THEOLOGICAL. 

1.  The  day  of  the  Lord  (i.  15  ;  ii.  1  ;  iii.  4-14), 
is  a  phrase  used  only  by  the  prophets.  If,  as  some 
think,  Obadiah  is  the  oldest,  the  phrase  occurs  first 
in  Ob.  15,  and  next  in  the  above  marked  places 
in  Joel.  If  this  view  of  the  relative  ages  of  these 
prophets  be  correct,  we  may  assume  that  the 
phrase  was  introduced  into  prophetic  language  by 
Obadiah.  Certainly  Joel  uses  it  in  a  way  to  show 
that  he  regarded  the  idea  expressed  by  it  as  one 
well  known  to  those  for  whom  he  prophesied, 
though,  as  Ewald  suggests,  the  expression  may  be 
here  presented  in  its  oldest  and  simplest  form.  "As 
the  king  of  a  vast  empire,  —  Ewald  adds,  —  may 
for  a  time  so  completely  disappear  from  the  view 
of  his  subjects,  as  to  be  the  same  as  if  he  had 
ceased  to  exist,  and  then  suddenly  reappear  among 
them,  in  the  fullness  of  his  power  to  hold  a  long 
delayed  assize,  so  the  Invisible  One  may  put  off, 
nr  seem  to  put  off  the  day  when  He  will  appear  as 
the  Supreme  Judge.  The  idea  of  the  "day  of  the 
Lord"  is  closely  connected  with  that  of  Jehovah 
as  king,  who  as  such  has  a  "  day  "  for  men,  — a 
day  in  the  pregnant  sense  of  the  word,  a  day  for 
judgment  Jehovah  as  king  must  and  will,  in 
due  time,  suddenly  and  miraculously  judge  and 
Kiihdue  all  who  are  in  rebellion  against  Him.  He 
will  subject  all  things  to  his  own  holy  and  right- 
eous control,  thus  showing  that  his  will  is  the 
nly  and  absolute  rule  ;  and  will  rectify  all  that  is 
now  disorderly  in  the  condition  of  things  on  the 
earth.  As  Israel  was  then  the  kingdom  of  Jeho- 
ran  in  a  special  sense,  "  the  day  "  for  Israel  as 
God's  people,  would  be  the  epoch  of  their  perfect 
and  glorious  deliverance  from  all  their  enemies. 
This  appear?  in  ch.  iii.  The  "day"  is  that  one 
on  which  Jehovah  sits  in  judgment  <m  all  his  foes, 
uiid  when  Israel's  prosperity  begins.  Yet  it  is  even 
for  Israel  a  day  of  judgment,  —  one  that  shall 
make  it  manifest  whether  they  are  faithful  or  not 


to  their  obligations  as  God's  people.  If  not,  even 
they  shall  be  destroyed,  unless  timely  repentance 
intervenes.  This  view  is  presented  in  chaps,  i.- 
ii.  Thus  while  the  ultimate  result  of  the  judg- 
ment will  be  the  salvation  and  glory  of  Israel,  the 
immediate  design  of  the  day  of  the  Lord  is  the 
punishment  of  the  heathen  as  the  enemies  of  hia 
people,  and  of  the  latter  as  well  if  untrue  to  their 
covenant  relat'on.  Hence  all  the  predicates  that 
describe  the  day,  mark  it  as  one  of  judgment.  It 
is  "  great  and  very  terrible  "  (ii.  11 ;  iii.  4)  ;  "  iaik 
and  gloomy "  (ii.  2;  Amos  v.  18;  Is.  ii.  12j.  In 
the  announcement  of  this  "  day,''  Israel  is  not  so 
much  consoled,  as  warned  against  self-conceit  and 
security,  —  a  warning  all  the  more  earnest  on  ac- 
count of  the  uncertainty  of  its  coming.  Hence 
men  should  be  always  ready  for  it.  Still,  Joel 
does  not  as  yet  seem  to  know  how  far  the  king- 
doms of  Israel  and  of  Judah  may  be  faithless  to 
their  calling  as  God's  people,  nor  what  divine 
judgment  shall  overtake  them.  He  sees  them,  on 
the  one  hand,  menaced  by  judgments,  but  on  the 
other  hand,  by  their  penitence  averting  them,  so 
that  actually  these  judgments  in  their  destructive 
power  fall  upon  the  heathen  alone,  while  Israel 
and  Judah  are  redeemed  and  glorified.  The 
mn^'D'P  is  the  i)fifpa  rod  Kvplov  of  the  New 
Testament.  Joel,  however,  does  not  use  the  phrase 
"  day  of  the  Lord  "  with  reference  to  the  hope  of 
Messiah's  coming,  since  we  find  no  such  hope  in 
any  part  of  his  prophecy. 

2.  The  next  question  is  this,  —  Considering  the 
"  day  of  the  Lord  "  as  one  of  menace  to  Israel, 
how  was  it  regarded  by  the  prophet  himself?  We 
begin  by  saying  that  the  "  day,"  as  viewed  by  Joel, 
was  not  marked  by  a  series  of  events,  but  by  a 
single,  sudden,  and  conclusive  act.  And  therefore 
Keil  applies  modern  speculative  notions  to  the  ex- 
position of  the  phrase,  when  he  says,  "  each  partic- 
ular judgment  by  which  God  chastises  his  own 
people  for  their  sins,  or  destroys  the  enemies  of  his 
kingdom,  may  be  regarded  as  a  moment  in  the  '  day 
of  the  Lord.' "  If  so,  why  should  Joel  connect  the 
approach  of  that  day  with  the  visitation  of  locusts  f 
As  already  mentioned  inch.  i.  the  allegoric  signifi- 
cation assigned  by  some  to  the  locusts  (i.  e.,  hos- 
tile hosts),  has  arisen  out  of  the  union  of  two  het- 
erogeneous things.  This  allegoric  sense  may  be 
found  in  those  other  prophets,  one  of  whose  chief 
themes  was  the  judgment  to  be  inflicted  upon  Is- 
rael by  means  of  heathen  nations  —  a  judgment 
which  then  appears  as  "  the  day  of  the  Lord"  for 
Israel.  But  the  verbal  text  will  not  admit  of  this 
principle  of  interpretation  in  ch.  i.  The  objection, 
however,  does  not  hold  in  ch.  ii.,  where  the  prophet 
describes  the  entrance  of  swarms  of  locusts  into  the 
land  as  an  actual  event,  and  also  designates  it  as 
the  coming  of  the  day  of  the  Lord.  Some  inter- 
preters take  the  locust  visitation  as  a  presage  and 
a  symbol  of  an  invasion  by  hosts  of  a  different 
kind,  partly  on  the  ground  that  it  is  denoted  as 
the  coming  of  the  day  of  the  Lord,  and  partly  from 
the  use  of  the  term  "  northern  "  in  ver.  20,  which 
cannot  be  applied  to  the  locusts.  There  is,  how- 
ever, not  much  force  in  the  first  of  these  consider- 
ations, for  while  there  is,  in  a  general  way,  an  ob- 
vious analogy  between  the  swarms  of  locusts  anu 
an  invading  army,  much  is  here  said  about  the  one 
that  will  not  apply  to  the  other.  The  reference  to 
Is.  xiii.  is  more  to  the  purpose,  for  he  quotes  the 
very  words  of  Joel,  and  describes  the  judgment  of 
Babel  in  terms  that  show  that  he  understood  the 
locust  invasion  in  an  allegoric  sense.     But  thongt 


CHAPTER  II.  1-17. 


_i 


the  language  of  -the  two  prophets  is  so  similar,  it 
does  not  follow  that  they  refer  to  the  same  events, 
nor  that  their  words  are  to  be  understood  in  pre- 
sisely  the  same  sense. 

But  there  are  positive  difficulties  in  the  way  of 
the  allegoric  interpretation  of  this  chapter.  For 
example,  what  can  be  meant  by  "  driving  the  lo- 
custs into  the  sea  "  (ii.  20)  1  Again,  the  question 
arises,  if  Israel  is  threatened  by  an  enemy,  by  what 
one  ?  The  word  "  northern  "  proves  nothing.  It 
is  strange,  on  this  thecry,  th?.t  while  Joel  describes 
the  judgment  on  Israel  by  some  for,  be  gives  us 
no  hint  even  by  which  to  identify  him.  There  is 
no  indication  that  the  heathen  nations  were  to  be 
the  chosen  instruments  for  this  purpose.  On  the 
contrary,  what  they  do  against  Israel  is  exhibited 
as  a  crime  which  shall  bring  down  God's  judg- 
ments on  their  own  head.  This  method  of  ex- 
position also  overlooks  the  differences  in  the  times 
when  the  several  prophets  lived.  In  Joel's  days, 
the  great  empires  had  not  yet  appeared  as  the  spe- 
cial instruments  of  God's  judgments  on  his  cov- 
enant people.  In  this  character  they  had  not  yet 
come  within  the  range  of  the  prophet's  vision. 
He  knew,  indeed,  that  Israel's  sins  deserved,  and 
w-rald  receive  chastisement,  but  he  had  not  yet 
b<en  told  that  the  heathen  nations  would  be  God's 
agents  in  inflicting  it.  Whenever  they  are  named, 
it  is  as  being  themselves  the  objects  of  wrath,  while 
Israel  appears  as  a  penitent  and  the  recipient  of 
God's  mercy. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  while  the  prophet  de- 
scribes a  real  locust  visitation,  he  sees  in  it,  at 
least  to  a  certain  extent,  a  type  of  the  "  day  of  the 
Lord  —  a  day  of  judgment ;  "  or  in  other  words, 
what  the  land  had  already  experienced  might 
warn  its  inhabitants  that  they  would  have  a  still 
more  bitter  experience  when  that  "  day  "  arrived. 
But  the  difficulty  is  that  if  we  suppose  one  event 
to  be  in  any  sense  formally  typical  of  the  other, 
we  find  in  the  minutely  detailed  account  of  the 
type  much  that  in  no  way  corresponds  with  the 
antitype.  The  darkness,  the  terror,  and  the  des- 
olation produced  by  the  locusts  might  be  in  them- 
selves typical,  but  these  are  the  features  on  which 
the  least  emphasis  is  laid  by  the  prophet. 

The  view  which  we  prefer  is  this.  The  land 
had  been  desolated  by  locusts  to  an  unparalleled 
extent.  The  prophet  had  reason  to  fear  that  this 
was  the  harbinger  of  a  worse  calamity  of  the  same 
sort.  He  sees  in  the  visitation  the  beginning  of 
the  day  of  the  Lord.  The  locust  army  is  led  by 
God  himself,  and  hence  the  lively  colors  of  that 
picture  of  it  which  he  draws.  The  plague  of  lo- 
custs and  the  day  of  the  Lord  are  not  to  be  taken 
as  two  distinct  things.  They  differ,  not  like  the 
type  and  the  antitype,  but  as  the  beginning  and 
the  end  of  the  same  thing.  And  so  he  says,  "  the 
day  of  the  Lord  cometh,  it  is  near."  He  sees  its 
approach,  still  he  hopes  that  the  repentance  of  the 
people  in  answer  to  his  earnest  appeals,  will  ward 
off  its  further  effects,  —  that  Israel,  warned  and 
taught  by  the  earlier  and  merely  relative  judg- 
ment, may  escape  the  final  one,  and  that  the  en- 
emies of  God's  people  alone  shall  be  overwhelmed 
by  it.  The  day  of  the  Lord  in  the  highest  sense 
of  the  words,  did  not,  indeed,  come  with  the  ca- 
lamity by  which  Israel  was  then  chastised,  but 
each  preliminary  judgment  was  really  the  pre- 
cursor and  pledge  of  the  absolute  and  final  one. 
All  that  we  can  affirm  is  that  the  prophet  saw  in 
'this  locust  visitation  not  merely  a  natural  phe- 
nomenon, but  the  finger  of  God.  In  these  terrible 
icenes  he  hears  the  voice  of  the  Living  God  call- 


ing his  people  to  repentance.  As  God's  messen- 
ger he  reechoes  the  earnest  appeal,  knowing  that 
ere  long  He  will  come  to  judge  his  people,  though 
the  exact  time  of  his  coming  none  can  toll. 

3.  The  plague  of  locusts  was  a  punishment  of 
the  nation's  sins.  The  prophet,  therefore,  demands 
hearty  repentance,  and  a  return  to  God.  He,  hew- 
ever,  does  not  name  the  sins  which  had  brought 
down  this  chastisement.  There  seems  to  have 
been  no  one  prevalent  form  of  corruption  at  that 
time,  and,  in  particular,  there  is  no  distinct  trace 
of  idolatry.  But  this  shows  how  earnest  God  is 
in  punishing  sin,  since  not  only  do  gross  iniquities 
awaken  his  displeasure,  but  also  sins  of  the  heart, 
though  there  may  be  no  outward  display  of  them. 
His  love  to  his  people  also  appears,  since  He  sum- 
mons them  to  repentance,  in  circumstances,  in 
which,  without  such  a  call,  they  might  have  sunk 
into  a  condition  of  dangerous  security.  The  earn- 
estness of  the  prophet  is  also  shown  by  his  recog- 
nizing these  calamities  as  divine  judgments  for 
sin,  and  his  evident  belief  that  although  the  peo- 
ple might  outwardly  seem  to  be  in  the  right  way, 
they  might  really  he  at  the  same  time  ripe  for 
punishment.  The  repentance  he  demands,  should 
consist  essentially  of  turning  with  the  whole  heart 
to  God,  and  which  would  outwardly  manifest  it- 
self by  fasting,  weeping,  and  rending  the  gar- 
ments. These  were  expressive  symbols,  and  on/ 
this  very  account  there  was  danger  of  putting 
them  in  the  place  of  the  inward  feelings  which 
they  implied  and  represented.  Against  this  mis- 
take he  warns  the  people,  "  rend  your  hearts  and 
not  your  garments."  But  even  their  sorrow  for 
sin,  however  real,  would  be  of  no  avail  without  an 
actual  turning  to  God.  The  repentance  which  He 
demands,  is  such  as  both  has  its  seat  in  the  heart, 
and  displays  itself  in  the  life.  Prayer  for  pardon 
is  a  prominent  feature  of  the  public  solemn  hu- 
miliation described  in  ver.  17.  As  the  whole  land 
had  been  already  chastised,  and  was  still  threat- 
ened with  a  severer  infliction,  the  repentance  suited 
to  the  occasion  was  not  simply  that  of  individuals, 
but  of  the  whole  nation  as  such.  Of  course,  this 
national  penitence  has  its  root  in  that  of  individ- 
ual men,  but  it  does  not  rest  there.  As  Israel 
had  only  one  legal  sanctuary  —  the  Temple,  —  all 
public  religious  ceremonies  must  take  place  there, 
and  through  the  ministry  of  the  one  priesthood. 
The  public  fast-day  demanded  by  the  Prophet  is  a 
Biblical  precedent  for  the  observance  of  similar 
days  in  Christian  times  and  lands.  They  are  as 
proper  under  the  New  Economy  as  they  were  un- 
der the  Old.  In  this  penitential  prayer,  there  is 
not  only  an  appeal  to  God's  mercy,  but  a  declara- 
tion that  his  honor  is  concerned  in  the  continued 
existence  of  Israel  as  his  people.  To  abandon 
Israel  wholly  would  give  occasion  to  the  heathen 
to  blaspheme,  as  if  God  had  been  unable  to  save 
his  people,  or  had  forgotten  his  promises  to  do  so. 
This  relation,  and  these  promises  were  not  de- 
signed, nor  did  they  really  tend  to  beget  a  sinful 
security,  but  to  keep  alive  in  the  hearts  of  God's 
people  an  humble  faith  and  hope.  Israel  bowf 
under  God's  hand,  but  at  the  same  time  trust! 
Him  as  his  God.  This  relation  of  ancient  Israel 
is  repeated,  but  in  a  far  higher  form  and  degree  in 
the  sonship  of  God's  people  under  the  New  Cove- 
nant. 

Repentance  is  necessary.  It  alone  can  help,  yet 
the  punitive  justice  of  God  has  also  its  influence 
for  good.  For  while  it  is  certain  that  the  right 
eous  Lord  will  punish  sin,  his  grace,  and  pity,  and 
patience  are  no  less  certain.     And  so  if  there  '* 


t'l 


JOEL. 


no  defect  in  the  repentance  of  the  sinner,  forgive- 
ness will  not  be  wanting  on  the  part  of  God.  This 
truth  is  most  emphatically  expressed  in  ver.  18, 
where  a  rich  promise  immediately  follows  a  se- 
vere menace.  Yet  the  observation  of  Reiger  is 
a  very  just  one,  namely,  that  the  true  penitent 
must  and  will  leave  wholly  in  God's  hand  the 
mitigation  of  the  temporal  "punishment  which  he 
may  have  brought  upon  himself  on  account  of  his 
sins. 

HOMILET1CAL. 

Ver.  1.  Blow  the  trumpet.  It  is  the  office  of  a 
minister  of  God's  Word,  when  great  calamities  are 
imminent,  to  sound  an  alarm,  and  call  men  to  re- 
pentance. The  day  of  the  Lord,  etc.  All  the 
remarkable  judgments'  with  which  God  visits  in- 
dividuals, or  a  land,  are  harbingers  of  the  final 
judgment  of  the  world,  and  whatever  there  is  of 
the  terrible  in  the  former,  will  be  found  in  the  lat- 
ter, in  a  far  higher  degree,  by  godless  sinners. 
How  stupid  the  security  of  those  who,  in  the  face 
of  such  events,  with  ruin  impending  over  their 
heads,  are  not  disturbed  even  for  a  moment.  The 
day  of  the  Lord  cometh.  (1)  Nothing  is  more 
certain  than  the  fact  of  its  coming.  (2)  But 
nothing  is  more  uncertain  than  the  time  of  its 
coming.  The  call  to  prepare  for  it  should  be  con- 
tinually sounding.  It  does  not  come  so  quickly, 
perhaps,  as  we  in  our  impatience  often  wish,  but 
it  will  come  more  quickly  than  the  secure  imagine. 
Its  delay  is  not  designed  to  beget  wantonness  in 
men,  but  only  shows  —  as  we  should  gratefully 
own  —  the  long  suffering  of  the  Lord,  who  de- 
sires not  that  any  should  perish ;  God  warns  men 
often,  and  for  a  long  time,  but  at  last  the  decision 
will  come.  We  should  not  be  hasty  in  predicting 
when  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  come*  but  we  should 
oe  reminded  of  it  in  all  the  visitations  of  his  provi- 
dence, and  we  should  try  to  put  ourselves  in  the 
-ight  of  that  day.  As  the  special  divine  judg- 
ment!" will  find  their  completest  accomplishment  in 
that  last  great  day  of  wrath,  they  are  so  described 
as  to  fill  men's  minds  with  a  wholesome  terror, 
and  to  convince  them  how  utterly  unable  they 
•hall  be  to  endure  it. 

[Puset  :  Ver.  1.  The  trumpet  was  wont  to 
•ound  in  Zion  only  for  religious  uses:  to  call  to- 
gether^  the  congregations  for  holy  meetings,  to 
usher  in  the  beginnings  of  their  months,  and  their 
solemn  days  with  festival  gladness.  Now,  in  Zion 
itself,  the  stronghold  of  the  kingdom,  the  holy 
city,  the  place  which  God  chose  to  put  his  Name 
there,  which  He  had  promised  to  establish,  the 
trumpet  was  to  be  used  only  for  sounds  of  alarm 
and  fear.  Alarm  could  not  penetrate  there,  with- 
out having  pervaded  the  whole  land.  Good  is  the 
trouble  which  shaketh  carnal  peace,  vain  security, 
and  the  rest  of  bodily  delight,  when  men,  weigh- 
ing their  sins,  are  shaken  with  fear  and  trembling, 
and  repent.  — P.] 

Ver.  2.  A  day  of  darkness.  A  day  of  judgment 
is  a  manifestation  of  God's  wrath  against  sin,  after 
the  measure  of  his  grace  which  seeks  to  save  and 
bless  them  has  been  exhausted.  Hence  darkness 
is  its  proper  symbol. 

[Henry:  Extraordinary  judgments  are  rare 
things  and  seldom  happen,  which  is  an  instance 
of  God's  patience.  Let  none  be  proud  of  the 
beauty  of  their  grounds  any  more  than  of  their 
•odies,  for  God  can  soon  change  the  face  of  both. 
-F.] 

Ver.  6.     The  people  tremble.     An  ever-growing 


dread  will  accompany  and  enhance  the  terrors  of 
approaching  judgment.  Men  in  their  wanton  se- 
curity are  all  the  while  preparing  the  material  of 
such  fear. 

[Henry  :  When  God  frowns  upon  men,  thi 
lights  of  heaven  will  be  small  joy  to  them.  For, 
man  by  rebelling  against  his  Creator,  has  forfeited 
the  benefit  of  all  his  creatures.  None  can  escape 
the  arrests  of  God's  •srath,  can  make  head  against 
the  force  of  it,  or  bear  up  under  the  weight°of  it. 

Puset:  The  judgments  of  God  h»ld  on  their 
course,  each  going  straight  to  that  person  for 
whom  God,  in  the  awful  wisdom  of  his  justice,  or- 
dains it.  No  one  judgment  or  chastisement  comes 
by  chance.  Each  is  directed  and  adapted,  weighed 
and  measured,  by  infinite  wisdom,  and  reaches 
just  that  soul  for  which  God  appointed  it,  and  no 
other,  and  strikes  upon  it  with  just  that  force 
which  God  ordains  it.  —  F.J 

Ver.  1 1 .  Very  great  is  his  army.  God  can  use 
any  creature  as  his  instrument  to  do  his  work. 
How  many  and  mighty  the  hosts  which  He  can 
send  against  men !  The  smallest  things  can  be- 
come his  agents  to  produce  the  greatest  results. 
The  mightiness  of  God,  and  the  weakness  of  men, 
are  here  most  distinctly  displayed.  Who  can  en- 
dure? No  one  who  does  not  turn  in  penitence  to 
God.  This  is  a  most  momentous  question,  which 
we  should  often  and  seriously  ponder.  O  what  a 
creature  is  man  !  How  proud  when  trouble  is  at 
a  distance  !  How  powerless  and  despairing  when  it 
overtakes  him ! 

Ver.  12.  Yet  also  even  now,  etc.  These  words 
introduce  the  exhortation  to  repentance,  to  guard 
the  people  against  the  notion,  that,  when  the 
prophet  called  on  them  to  repent,  and  assured 
them  that  they  would  escape  punishment  if  they 
did  so,  he  was  speaking  in  a  sort  of  formal  way, 
and  in  his  own  name.  Both  the  exhortation  and 
the  promise  come  from  God.  When  repentance^ 
enters,  then  comes  help  and  hope.  Repentance  ' 
alone  can  ward  off  divine  judgments.  It  is  not 
enough  that  repentance  be  strong  in  its  outward 
manifestations,  as  fasting  and  weeping,  it  must 
also  be  deep-seated,  hearty,  and  not  superficial. 
Turn  unto  the  Lord.  A  call  that  is  both  needful 
and  salutary,  though,  alas,  too  often  unheeded. 
Grief  for  sin  is  only  the  half  of  repeutance,  it 
must  be  accompanied  by  a  real  turning  to  God. 
Only  thus,  O  man,  shalt  thou  obtain  pardon;  only 
thus  will  there  be  an  actual  turning  away  from 
sin.  Sinner  !  despair  not  on  account  of  thy  mis- 
deeds. Is  God's  wrath  against  sin  very  great? 
His  grace  in  pardoning  it  is  greater  still.  So  rich 
is  the  grace  of  God  that  the  prophet  is  at  a  loss 
for  words  adequately  to  describe  it.  How  ready 
God  is  to  repent  Him  of  the  evil !  Make  a  trial 
of  his  readiness  and  see.  He  who  does  not  seek 
God's  grace  as  a  penitent  will  never  know  how 
great  it  is.  How  much  more  willing  is  God  to 
leave  behind  Him  a  blessing  rather  than  a  curse. 
No  one  would  ever  truly  repent  unless  grace  planted 
in  the  heart  the  seeds  of  faith  and  hope.  Though 
a  gracious  hope  grows  slowly,  yet  the  wavering 
heart  will  often  be,  in  a  secret  way,  sustained  by 
it,  and  such  a  soul  will  better  apprehend  it  than 
one  filled  with  overmuch  confidence. 

[Jeremy  Taylor:  Although  all  sorrow  foi 
sins  hath  not  the  same  expression,  nor  the  same 
degree  of  pungency  and  sensitive  trouhla,  yet  it  i» 
not  a  godly  sorrow,  unless  it  really  produces  thes« 
effects;  i.  e.  (1),  that  it  makes  us  really  to  hate, 
and  (2)  actually  to  decline  sin  ;  and  (3)  produce! 
in  us  a  tear  of  God's  anger,  a  sense  of  the  guilt  of 


CHAPTER  II.  18-32. 


U3 


his  displeasure;  (4)  and  then  such  consequent 
trouble  as  can  consist  with  such  apprehension  of 
the  Divine  displeasure  ;  which,  if  it  express  not  in 
tears  and  hearty  complaints,  must  be  expressed  in 
watchings  and  strivings  against  sin  ;  in  patiently 
bearing  the  rod  of  God  ;  in  confession  of  our  sins  ; 
in  perpetual  begging  of  perdon  ;  and  in  all  the 
aatural  productions  of  these  according  to  our  tem- 
per and  constitution ;  it  must  be  a  sorrow  of  the 
reasonable  faculty,  the  greatest  of  its  kind. 

Pusey  :  Although  the  mercy  of  God  is  in  itself 
one  and  simple,  yet  is  called  abundant,  on  account 
of  its  divers  effects.  For  God  knows  how  in  a 
thousand  ways  to  succor  his  own.  — P.] 

Ver.  14.  A  meat-offering,  etc.  God's  glory  and 
our  salvation  are  so  intimately  conjoined,  that  the 
pardon  of  the  guilty  is  facilitated  thereby,  since 
the  salvation  of  the  sinner  redounds  to  the  glory 
of  God. 

[Henry  :  Now  observe  :  ( 1 )  The  manner  of  the 
expectation  is  very  humble  and  modest.  Who 
knows?  Some  think  it  is  expressed  thus  doubt- 
fully to  check  the  presumption  of  the  people,  and 
to  quicken  them  to  a  holy  carefulness.  Or,  rather, 
it  is  expressed  doubtfully,  because  it  is  the  removal 
of  a  temporal  judgment  that  they  here  promise 
themselves,  of  which  we  cannot  be  so  confident,  as 
that  God  is  gracious.  (2)  The  matter  of  the  ex- 
pectation is  very  pious,  they  hope  God  will  return 
and  leave  a  blessing  behind  Him,  not  as  if  He  were 
about  to  go  from  them,  and  they  could  be  con- 
tent with  any  blessing  in  lieu  of  his  presence,  but 
behind  Him,  i.  e.,  after  He  has  ceased  his  con  tro- 
versy. 

Pusey  :  God  has  promised  forgiveness  of  sins 
to  those  who  turn  to  Him.  But  He  has  not  prom- 
ised, either  to  individuals  or  churches,  that  He  will 
remit  the  temporal  punishment  which  He  had 
threatened.  He  forgave  David  his  sin  (against 
Uriah).  But  the  temporal  punishment  of  his  sin 
pursued  him  even  on  the  bed  of  death.  God  often 
y's/ts  the  penitent  soul,  and  by  some  sweetness  with 
which  the  soul  is  bathed  leaves  a  token  of  his  re- 
newed presence. — F.] 

Vers.  15,  16.  Satictifij  a  fast —  Gather  the  peo- 
vle.  Fasting  is  a  refined  external  discipline,  pro- 
motive of  prayer  and  piety.  Only  we  must  take 
care  not  to  make  a  merit  of  it.  —  The  people. 
By  penitence  and  prayer,  an  entire  community 
may  be  saved  from  a  great  calamity.  —  Children. 
Parents  should  be  aroused  to  a  deeper  sorrow  for 


their  sins  by  the  thought  of  their  young  children, 
who  are  also  members  of  God's  Church,  and  in- 
cluded in  his  covenant.  As  little  children  share  in 
the  calamities  caused  by  the  sins  of  their  parents, 
their  common  distress  should  be  presented  before 
the  Lord,  and  deliverance  from  it  asked. —  Th« 
Bride.  In  seasons  of  general  distress  and  danger, 
we  should  abstain  from  the  most  innocent  enjoy- 
ment. 

[Henry  :  It  is  good  to  bring  little  children,  as 
scon  as  they  are  capable  of  understanding  any- 
thing, to  religious  assemblies,  that  they  may  be 
trained  up  betimes  in  the  way  they  should  go.  — 
Private  joys  must  always  give  way  to  public  sor- 
rows, both  those  for  affliction,  and  those  for  sin. 

Robinson  :  It  is  very  consolatory  to  observe, 
even  in  the  midst  of  this  terrific  visitation  —  the 
last  harbinger  of  the  Saviour's  coming  —  an  invi- 
tation of  mercy.  If  men  will  then  but  seek  the 
Lord  with  their  whole  heart,  in  deep  humiliation, 
and  turn  away  from  their  sins,  He  will  be  inquired 
of.  At  the  eleventh  hour,  when  the  time  for  work 
is  all  but  gone,  they  may  find  admission  into  his 
vineyard.  Happy  is  it  when  outward  afflictions 
of  any  kind  lead  us  to  true  repentance.  — F.] 

Ver.  17.  Let  the  Priests.  The  special  duty  of 
the  priesthood  was  to  exhort  the  people  to  repent- 
ance, to  stand  between  them  and  the  Lord  and 
pray  for  them,  and  hence  it  is  the  duty  of  every 
Christian,  as  a  spiritual  priest,  to  stir  up  his  fellow 
Christians  to  repentance,  and  to  pray  for  them.  — 
Spare  Thy  People,  —  a  petition  full  of  humility 
and  confidence,  i.  e.,  "  look  upon  our  needs,  but 
remember  also  thy  glory,  0  Lord ! "  What  we 
need  is  God's  mercy.  We  can  appeal  to  what  his 
grace  has  made  of  us.  There  is  the  strongest  an- 
tithesis between  God's  people  and  the  heathen, 
just  as  there  is  between  God  and  idols.  —  Where 
is  their  God.  God  will  never  abandon  his  people, 
—  a  truth  full  of  comfort  to  them,  though  it 
affords  no  ground  for  carnal  security.  On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  fitted  to  stimulate  us  to  be  faithful  to 
Him,  as  He  is  faithful  to  us. 

[Henry  :  Ministers  must  themselves  be  affected 
with  those  things  wherewith  they  desire  to  affect, 
others.  —  The  maintaining  of  the  credit  of  the  na- 
tion among  its  neighbors,  is  a  blessing  to  be  de- 
sired and  prayed  for,  by  all  that  wish  well  to  it. 
But  that  reproach  of  the  Church  is  especially  to  be 
dreaded  and  deprecated  which  reflects  upon  Go<L 
-F.] 


PART    SECOND. 

THE  PROMISE. 

Chapters  LL  18-ILL  21. 


SECTION  I. 

Annihilation  of  the  Locust  Army.    Reparation  of  the  Damage  done  by  :Jt,  by  a  Rich 

Blessing. 

Chapter  II.  18-27 

18  Then  Jehovah  will  be  jealous1  for  his  hind. 
And  will  pity  his  people. 


^4  JOEL 

19  And  Jehovah  will  answer  and  say  unto  his  people. 
Behold  I  will  send 2  you  the  corn,8 

The  new  wine,  and  the  oil ; 
And  ye  shall  be  satisfied  *  therewith, 
And  I  will  no  longer  make  you 
A  reproach  among  the  heathen. 

20  And  I  will  remove  far  from  you  the  northern6  host, 
And  will  drive  him  into  a  dry  and  desolate  land ; 
His  face  (or  his  van)  toward  the  east  sea, 

His  rear  towards  the  west  sea. 
And  his  stench  shall  arise, 
And  his  ill  savor  shall  ascend, 
For  He  has  done  great  things.6 

21  Fear  not,  O  Land, 
Be  glad  and  rejoice, 

For  Jehovah  hath  done  great  things. 

22  Fear  not,  ye  beasts  of  the  field ! T 

For  the  pastures  of  the  wilderness  have  sprung  up, 

The  tree  beareth  her  fruit, 

The  fig  tree  and  the  vine  yield  their  strength.8 

23  0  ye  children  of  Zion  rejoice  and  be  glad 
In  Jehovah  your  God  ; 

For  He  gives  you  the  former  rain  9  in  just  measure, 

And  sends  you,  in  showers,  the  early  and  the  latter  rain,  as  aforetime.1* 

24  And  the  threshing  floors  shall  be  full  of  corn, 
And  the  vats  shall  overflow  with  wine  and  oil. 

25  And  I  will  restore11  (or  replace)  the  years12 

Which  the  locust,  the  cankerworm,  the  caterpillar  and  tr.  e  palmerworm  have  de» 

voured, 
My  great  army  which  I  sent  against  you. 

26  Then  ye  shall  eat  in  plenty 13  and  be  satisfied, 
And  shall  praise  the  name  of  Jehovah  your  God, 
Who  hath  dealt  wondrously  with  you. 

And  my  people  shall  never  be  ashamed. 

27  And  "  ye  shall  know  that  I  am  in  the  midst  of  Israel, 
And  I  Jehovah  am  your  God,  and  none  else. 

And  my  people  shall  never  be  ashamed. 

CRITICAL   AND   TEXTUAL. 
1  Ver.  18.  —  S3p   with  b  or  2  =  to  be  jealous  for  some  one  out  of  lore. 
1  Ver.  19.  —  nvE\   more  lit.,  "am  sending." 

-    T  ' 

»  Ver.  19.  —  p^n  :   the  article  is  used  to  give  prominence  to  the  products  which  the  Lord  promises  to  send. 

4  Ver.  19.  —  \n*S   DFIV?27.     The  sing.  S"1*S  is  here  used  collectively. 

6  Ver.  20.  —  "  Northern."  Schmoller  insists  that  "'jiQSn  should  be  rendered  "destroyer."  See  Exeget.  note  oa 
.his  Ter. 

6  Ver  20.  —  nitl^b  b><:T3n  lit.,  "he  has  magnified  to  do."  Schmoller  renders  it :  "  er  hat  groisge'.ha%."  Thf 
same  phrase  occurs  in'ver.  21,  which  shows  that  it  cannot  be  taken  in  the  sense  of  boasting.  It  is  syuonyrr^us  with  th» 
miC^  MbSJS  (Judg.  xiii.  19),  and  S^Cftb  tlWV,  ii.  26. 

:  Ver.  22.  -  «  Fie'4  "  "Ht£7  is  not  the  plur.  for  D'HtP  but  the  sing.  =  717W,  according  to  the  analog  of  "Htl? 
P*    «evt    12 


CHAPTER  II.  18-27. 


25 


8  V«r.  22.  —  7sn  1H3,  "?ive  strength,"  like  the  Lat.  edere  fructum.  The  metaphor  is  one  in  which  the  oauM  t* 
put  for  the  effect.     Only  used  here  and  in  Ps.  i.  4. 

9  Ver.  23.  —  m"1Hi"T,  "  the  early  rain,"  from  iT"V\  jecit,  peitiaps  beoause  its  season  was  post  jactam  sementem. 

V  -  TT 

Keil  renders  it  "  a  teacher  for  righteousness."     But  the  word  when  so  used  is  followed  by  2,  more  rarely  by    ,-S,  0* 

1^2.  Ewald  and  Uuibreit  take  TinlQ  in  the  sense  of  "early  rain,"  but  render  the  phrase  "rain  for  righteousness," 
i.  e.,  as  a  sign  of  their  being  again  received  into  the  divine  righteousness.  But  this  is  a  strained  sense  ;  better,  "  ac- 
cording to  right,"  t.  e.,  in  just  measure,  as  the  ground  requires. 

10  Ver.  23.  —  "  Aforetime."  :  Tlti'S^S.  There  seems  to  be  an  omission  of  3.  The  Sept.  render  it  kclBius  ifj.npo<r9ev  ; 
the  Syr.,  ut  anlea  ;  the  Vulg.,  stent  in  prineipio.     The  Cliald.  and  Arab,  have  the  reading  "as  in  the  month  Nisan." 

11  Ver.  25.  —  The  primary  meaning  of  Oyti?  is  "  to  be  whole,"  but  it  is  here  used  in  the  sense  of  "  replace,  or  make 
good." 

13  Ver.  26.  — "  Years,"  CADIS'     the  plur.  form  used,  perhaps,  only  in  a  poetic  sense,  as  in  Gen.  xxi.  7;  Ps.  xlr.  9, 

10  ;  1  Sam.  xvii.  43. 

18  Ver.  26.  —  "  Eat  in  plenty,"  lit.,  "eat  an  eating,  or  eat  to  eat,"  etc.  Wlinsche  renders  it :  "  Und  ihr  werdel  essen, 
issen  und  satt  werden."  The  Heb.  often  has  the  infin.  absol.  as  the  object  complement  of  the  finite  verb,  which  some 
times  follows  and  sometimes  precedes  it. 

14  Ver.  27.  —  The  "I  here  indicates  the  logical  consequence  from  what  precedes. 


EXEGETICAL. 

The  second  part  of  this  chapter  is  wholly  occu- 
pied with  promises  to  Ju  Jah.  The  first  part,  which 
is  so  full  of  menaces,  had  also  revealed  God's  mer- 
cy in  case  of  repentance,  but  only  in  a  general 
way,  affording  only  a  glimmering  of  hope.  Now, 
however,  the  promises  given  by  Jehovah  Himself 
flow  forth  like  a  full,  broad  stream.  This  transi- 
tion occurs  suddenly  in  ver.  18.  The  promise, 
which  takes  the  form  of  an  answer  of  God,  is 
grounded  upon  a  seeming  change  in  the  Divine 
purpose.  A  declaration  so  positive  as  this,  intro- 
duced by  the  impcr.  consec,  as  an  actual  fact,  of 
course  implies  that  the  condition  on  which  the 
change  in  the  Divine  purpose  was  based,  had  been 
fulfilled,  i.  e.,  that  the  day  of  fasting  and  prayer 
had  been  duly  observed,  and  that  the  promise  is 
God's  answer  to  his  people's  penitential  prayer. 
Our  book,  therefore,  is  in  point  of  time  divided 
into  two  parts,  an  earlier  and  a  later  one. 

Ver.  18.  Then  will  the  Lord,  etc.  S3|7  with 
7=  to  be  jealous  for  some  one,  i.  e.,  to  be  zealous 
for  his  welfare  out  of  love  for  him. 

Vers.  19,  20.  Renewed  fertility  is  promised  by 
the  removal  of  the  cause  of  the  desolation.  Behold 
I  send  you.     This  carries  us  back  to  ch.  i.  10,  11. 

n^U?  5  because  the  growth  of  grain  depends  upon 
the  fertilizing  rain. 

Ver.  20.  'OiB^n,  not  the  northern  of  the  E. 
V.  and  other  versions,  for  the  locusts  never  invade 
Palestine  from  the  North,  but  the  destroyer.    The 

word  comes  from  T^%,  the  name  of  the  well- 
known  Egyptian  god  Typhon,  from  whence  also 
comes  the  6  tv<Pu>vik6s  (Acts  xxvii.  14).  [This  is 
a  fanciful  and  groundless  rendering.  The  word 
occurs  in  one  hundred  and  fifty  other  places  in  O. 
T.,  and  in  all  of  them  its  sense  is  clearly  that 
given  to  it  here  by  our  E.  V.  The  term  "^iD£J<7 
Bays  Wiinsche,  according  to  the  Masor.  punctua- 
tion, can  have  no  other  sense  than  that  of  "  north- 
ern," or  "  northerner."  The  allegorists  use  the 
word  as  a  proof  of  their  theory,  that  the  Chal- 
daeans,  or  Syrians  are  meant.  But  there  is  not 
?ither  in  what  precedes  or  in  what  follows,  the 
{lightest  trace  of  a  hostile  invasion  of Judah  by 
lither  of  these  nations.  The  word,  therefore,  must 
refer  to  the  locusts.  Nor  is  the  designation  of 
them  as  "  northern  "  an  arbitrary  one,  since  their 


movements  were  wholly  dependent  on  the  wind. 
—  F.]  Into  a  land  dry  and  desolate,  one  in 
which  this  army  will  find  nothing  to  destroy,  but 
will  itself  perish.  The  land  referred  to  is  the  des- 
ert of  Arabia,  on  the  southern  border  of  Judaea. 
The  two  ways  in  which  the  locusts  would  be  d<*- 
stroyed  are  mentioned  :  they  would  be  driven  ii.io 
the  desert,  and  into  the  sea.  Two  seas  are  named, 
in  which  this  army  should  perish,  namely,  the 
vanguard  in  the  east  or  Dead  Sea,  the  rear  in  the 
west  or  Mediterranean.  We  need  not,  however, 
suppose  that  the  destruction  of  these  two  divisions 
of  the  locust  army  occurred  at  the  same  time. 

[His  stench.  Jerome  says  of  the  locusts  of 
Palestine,  when  the  shores  of  both  seas  were  filled 
with  heaps  of  dead  locusts  which  the  waters  had 
cast  up,  their  stench  and  putrefaction  were  so  nox- 
ious as  to  corrupt  the  air,  so  that  a  pestilence  was 
produced  among  men  and  beasts.  The  same  fact 
is  attested  by  many  modern  travellers.  —  F.] 

Vers.  21-23.  Fear  not,  O  Land.  As  in  ch.  i. 
the  land  and  its  inhabitants  were  called  upon  to 
mourn  in  view  of  coming  judgments,  so  now  they 
are  called  upon  to  rejoice  over  the  destruction  of 
the  hosts  that  had  laid  waste  the  country.  Here, 
the  address  is  that  of  the  prophet;  while  in  ver 
25  the  Lord  himself  speaks.  The  subject  and  ob 
ject  of  the  joy  are  stated  (ver.  21)  in  a  general 
way.  The  latter  is  described  in  the  words  :  Jeho- 
vah hath  done  great  things.  The  perfect  tense 
is  here  used  like  the  German  present,  to  denote  an 
action,  which  being  absolutely  certain  is  thought 
of  and  presented  as  one  already  accomplished. 
What  is  here  said  of  God's  doings  is  not  to  be 
limited  to  that  special  time  or  occasion,  but  ex- 
presses a  universal  truth. 

Ver.  22.  Even  the  beasts  of  the  field  should  no 
longer  be  afraid  of  wanting  their  supplies  of  food. 
The  picture  of  blessing  which  begins  with  verdant 
pastures,  ends  with  trees  laden  with  fruit. 

Ver.  23.  Men  are  called  upon  to  rejoice.  Chil- 
dren of  Zion  may  be  taken  in  a  general  sense  for 
the  inhabitants  of  Judah,  since  Zion  represented 
Judah.     The  former  or  early  rain.    It  fell  after 

autumn,  and  seems  to  be  so  called  from  <~l~£,  jecit, 
because  its  season  was  post  jactam  sementem.  It 
was  the  chief  need  after  the  devastation  and 
drought,  and  hence  is  named  with  special  emphasis 
The  latter  rain  fell  about  harvest,  towards  the 

end  of  April.     Hence  its  name  from  tZ?H!7'  collegit 

jittftOg  corresponds   to   the  IP^HllW   (iii.  1) 


26 


JOEL. 


the  material  blessings  first,  then  the  spiritual. 
|Pusey :  It  may  be,  at  the  first,  i.  e.,  as  soon  as 
ever  it  is  needed,  or  in  contrast  to  the  more  exten- 
sive gifts  afterwards  ;  or,  as  at  the  first,  i.  e.,  all 
shall,  upon  their  penitence,  be  restored  as  at  the 
first.  These  lesser  variations  leave  the  sense  of 
the  whole  the  same,  and  all  are  supported  by  good 
authorities.  It  is  still  a  reversal  of  the  former 
sentence,  that,  whereas  before  the  rivers  of  water 
were  dried  up,  now  the  rains  should  come,  each  in 
his  season.  —  F.]  "  The  rain  shall  come  down," 
here  specially  opposed  to  the  drought,  but,  per- 
haps also  a  symbol  of  blessing  in  general.  [So 
far  as  this  special  act  may  be  generalized,  it  may 
rather  be  said  that  it  begets  and  keeps  alive  the 
consciousness  that  the  Giver  of  all  good  is  again 
in  the  midst  of  his  people.  —  F.] 

Vers.  24-27.  And  the  threshing  floors,  — my 
people  shall  never  be  ashamed. 

The  effects  of  the  rain  are  first  briefly,  and  then 
more  fully  described.  The  years,  i.  e.,  the  prod- 
uct of  the  years  which  the  locusts  had  devoured. 
The  plural  form  of  the  word  does  not  imply  that 
the  visitations  of  the  locusts  described  in  ch.  i.  were 
in  successive  years ;  it  only  means  that  the  results 
of  a  single  visitation  would  be  felt  for  several  years, 
and  that  as  long  a  time  would  be  required  to  re- 
pair the  mischief  done  by  the  locusts.  The  names 
of  the  four  kinds  of  locusts  given  in  ch.  i.  are  re- 
peated here,  only  that  the  generic  name  nS~lW 
holds  a  prominent  place. 

Vers.  26,  27.  A  beautiful  conclusion  ;  it  treats 
of  the  redemption  of  Israel  from  the  heathen,  and 
thereby  of  the  vindication  of  God  himself.  This 
is  the  fundamental  idea  that  repeatedly  recurs. 
This  conclusion  forms  the  point  of  transition  to 
the  new  and  higher  promises  in  ch.  iii.,  which  fully 
display  the  truth  that  "  Jehovah  is  in  the  midst  of 
Israel,  that  He  is  their  God  and  none  else,"  and 
therefore  that  his  people  can  never  be  put  to 
shame.  While  this  promise  is  in  a  negative  form, 
it  really  includes  much  more  than  the  literal  sense 
of  the  words ;  it  means  that  God's  people  shall 
not  only  not  be  ashamed,  but  that  they  shall  be 
glorified  forever,  and  that  all  the  powers  of  this 
world  that  have  opposed  them  shall  be  utterly  con- 
founded. 


THEOLOGICAL. 

The  greatness  of  the  promise  shows  the  power 
and  importance  of  repentance,  and  the  magnitude 
of  God's  grace.  It  is  a  confirmation  of  what  is 
said  (ii.  12).  The  punishment  God  inflicts  is  con- 
verted into  a  blessing ;  his  zeal  against  us  is 
changed  into  zeal  for  us.  God's  dispensing  bless- 
ing is  the  proof  that  He  is  in  the  midst  of  Israel ; 
that  Jehovah  and  none  else  is  their  God.  Jeho- 
vah is  in  the  midst  of  Israel,  the  centre  and  source 
of  spiritual  life.  It  is  solely  through  Him,  that 
Israel  is  what  he  is.  The  proof  that  God  dwells 
with  Israel  is  his  blessing  him  ;  for  the  very  object 
of  his  communion  with  Israel,  and  the  choice  of 
him  to  be  his  people,  is  to  bless  him.  In  dispens- 
ing blessings,  God  manifests  his  name,  his  power, 
his  bounty,  and  distinguishes  Himself  from  all 
false  gods,  who  being  dead  cannot  do  that ;  while 
Israel  being  thus  blessed  is  distinguished  from  the 
heathen,  standing  far  above  them  who  have  no 
mch  God.  Hence,  too,  the  punishments  inflicted 
jpon  Israel  are  in  strong  contrast  with  those 
rhich  overtake  the  heathen.  If  Israel  is  unfaith- 
••il  so  that  his  God  disowns  him,  it  is  quite  natural 


that  if  he  repents,  he  should  regain  the  blessing 
the  honor  of  God  and  of  his  people  require  this. 
Upon  this  fact,  repentant  Israel  grounds  his  prayei 
for  pardon,  and  the  promise  given  corresponds  to 
the  prayer.  When  God  sends  blessings  to  his  peo- 
ple, whom  his  judgments  have  brought  to  repent- 
ance, the  right  way  is,  to  rejoice  in  and  enjoy  them, 
with  humble  gratitude  indeed,  but  at  the  same  time 
with  the  confession  that  they  come  wholly  from 
Him.  Then,  the  humiliation  endured  will  have 
produced  its  proper  fruits. 


HOMILETICAL. 

Ver.  18.  And  Jehovah  was  jealous  for  his  people. 
Penitential  and  believing  prayer  secures  a  gracious 
answer  ;  sometimes  in  the  way  of  warding  off  the 
temporal  evils  with  which  God  visits  men.  Be- 
fore we  call,  God  will  answer,  and  while  we  are 
speaking,  He  will  hear. 

[Henry:  God  will  have  an  eye  (1.)  To  his 
own  honor,  and  the  reputation  of  his  covenant 
with  Israel,  by  which  He  had  conveyed  to  them 
that  good  land ;  now  He  will  not  suffer  it  to  be 
despised  or  disparaged,  but  will  be  jealous  for  the 
land  and  its  inhabitants,  who  had  been  praised  as 
a  happy  people,  and  therefore  must  not  lie  open  to 
reproach  as  a  miserable  people.  (2.)  To  their  dis- 
tress. He  will  pity  his  people,  and  will  restore 
them  their  former  comforts. 

Pusey  :  Before,  God  seemed  set  upon  their  de- 
struction. It  was  his  great  army  which  was  ready 
to  destroy  them  ;  He  was  at  their  head  giving  the 
word.  Now,  He  is  full  of  tender  love  for  them, 
which  resents  injuries  done  to  them,  as  done  to 
Himself.  —  F.] 

Ver.  19.  I  will  send  —  corn.  It  is  God  who  averts 
the  failure  of  crops,  and  scarcity  of  food.  These 
evils  neither  come  nor  cease  by  accident.  God 
gives  us  our  daily  bread.  He  opens  his  hand,  and 
we  are  satisfied  with  food. 

Ver.  20.  /  will  remove  the  northern.  When  God 
has  alarmed  his  people  and  brought  them  to  re- 
pentance, He  often  pours  out  his  wrath  upon  those 
who  were  his  instruments  in  the  infliction  of  chas- 
tisement. 

Ver.  21.  Fear  not.  How  kindly  God  can  speak 
to  the  heart !  How  powerfully  can  He  console ! 
It  is  easy  for  Him  to  do  great  things. 

[Posey  :  Before,  they  were  bidden  to  tremble; 
now  they  are  bidden  fear  not.  The  enemy  had 
done  great  things ;  now,  the  cause  of  joy  is,  that 
God  had  done  great  things ;  the  almightiness  of  God 
overwhelming  and  sweeping  over  the  might  put 
forth  to  destroy.  —  F.J 

Ver.  23.  Rejoice  in  the  Lord.  Joy  in  God  is  the 
right  kind  of  joy.  From  Him  comes  every  bless 
ing.  Yet  how  often  do  we  receive  joyfully  enough 
the  gift,  without  rejoicing  in  the  Giver  ?  Certainly 
he  who  does  not  know  God,  cannot  rejoice  in  Him, 

[Scott  :  The  sons  of  Zion  can  never  have  so 
great  a  cause  to  fear,  but  they  must  still  have  a 
greater  to  "  rejoice  in  the  Lord."  He  gives  us  all 
our  comforts,  and  enables  us  to  use  them  with 
thankful  hearts.  The  wisdom,  truth,  and  love  of 
his  dispensations  toward  us  deserve  our  highest 
admiration  ;  and  He  will  never  leave  his  people  to 
be  ashamed  of  their  confidence  in  Him.  —  F.J 

Ver.  25.  I  will  restore.  How  great  is  the  bounty 
of  God  !  It  seems  as  if  He  were  anxious  to  re- 
pair some  injury  which  his  preceding  judgment* 
had  caused. 

Ver.  26.  Ye  shall  be  satisfied.  What  a  blessed 
result  ol  humiliation  when  our  being  satisfied  and 


CHAPTER  II.  28-32. 


27 


praising  the  Lord  become  and  remain  so  united  in 
us,  that  we  can  never  again  misuse  God's  gifts  to 
feed  vain  conceit,  luxury,  tyranny,  but  shall  main- 
tain unmoved  fear,  love,  and  trust  in  God. 

[Pcset  :  It  is  of  the  punishment  of  God  when 
men  eat  and  are  not  satisfied ;  it  is  man's  sin  that 
they  are  satisfied  and  do  not  praise  God,  but  the 
more  forget  Him.  And  so  God's  blessings  become 
a  curse  to  him.  God  promises  to  restore  his  gifts, 
and  to  give  grace  withal,  that  they  should  own 
and  thank  Him.  —  F.] 

Ver.  27.  1  am  in  the  midst  of  Israel.  Blessed  is 
the  people  in  the  midst  of  whom  the  Lord  dwells. 


Every  fresh  blessing  should  be  a  proof  to  us  that 
God  is  in  the  midst  of  us.  But  we  must  be  God's 
people,  if  we  would  hope  to  have  Him  dwelling  in 
the  midst  of  us.  He  is  only  iu  .he  midst  of  Israel. 
God's  people  can  never  be  put  to  shame  ;  therefore 
let  us  see  that  we  belong  to  them. 

[Henry  :  We  should  labor  to  grow  in  our  ac 
quaintance  with  God  by  all  providences,  both 
merciful  and  afflictive.  When  God  gives  to  hii 
people  plenty  and  peace,  He  thereby  gives  them  to 
understand  that  He  is  pleased  with  their  repent- 
ance, that  He  has  pardoned  their  sins.  —  F.] 


SECTION  n. 

Hereafter,  on  "  the  Day  of  the  Lord"  the  Enemies  of  Israel  shall  be  destroyed,  while 
the  Lord  reigns  in  Zion  guarding  and  blessing  it. 

Chapter  II.  28-32. 

[In  the  Hebrew  text  and  in  Schmoller,  these  verses  form  Chap.  III.,  while  Chap.  HI.  of  E.  V.  is  numbered  Chap.  IT 
We  prefer  to  keep  the  order  of  the  E.  V.  —  P.] 

The  promise,  which  up  to  this  point  has  reference  to  the  present  and  the  near  future,  now  takes  a 
higher  and  wider  range.  It  brings  into  view  the  day  of  the  Lord,  the  result  of  the  coming  of  which 
shall  be,  on  the  one  hand,  the  overthrow  of  the  world-power,  and  on  the  other,  the  full  blessedness  of 
God's  people,  through  his  dwelling  in  the  midst  of  them.  Ch.  ii.  28-32  may  be  regarded  as  the  intro- 
duction to  the  closing  chapter,  which  describes  the  fulfillment  of  the  promise.  The  grand  events,  which 
are  the  harbingers  of  the  coming  of  the  day  of  the  Lord,  are  described.  Zion  is  pointed  out  as  the  only 
place  of  safety  ;  but  even  amid  the  terrors  of  that  day,  God's  people  will  have  no  reason  to  fear.  The 
third  chapter  describes  the  judgments  to  be  inflicted  upon  the  enemies  of  God's  people,  while  the  latter 
•hall  receive  the  richest  blessings  from  the  Lord,  who  sits  enthroned  on  Zion. 

28  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  afterward,1 

That  I  will  pour  out  my  Spirit  upon  all  flesh, 
And  your  sons  and  daughters  shall  prophesy ; 
Your  old  men  shall  dream  dreams, 
Your  young  men  shall  see  visions  ; 

29  Even  2  upon  the  men  servants  and  the  maid  servant*, 
In  those  days,  will  I  pour  out  my  spirit. 

30  And  I  will  give  signs  3  in  heaven  and  on  earth, 
Blood,  and  fire,  and  columns  of  smoke ; 

31  The  sun  shall  be  turned  into  darkness, 
And  the  moon  into  blood, 

Before  the  great  and  terrible  day  of  the  Lord  come. 

32  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  whosoever  calleth  on  the  name  of  the  Lord  shall  b« 

saved. 
For  on  Mount  Zion  and  in  Jerusalem  shall  be  deliverance, 
As  Jehovah  hath  said  ; 
Even  among  the  remnant 4  whom  Jehovah  shall  call. 

CRITICAL   AND   TEXTUAL. 

1  Tar.  38.  —  "  Afterward."  "Jp""^!^  is  clearly  identical  with  the  formula  used  by  the  later  prophet*.  H^nSa 
D^H,    "  the  last  days." 

>  Ver.  29.  —  "  Even."     The  "  also  "  of  E.  V.  hardly  expresses  the  emphasis  of  D3. 

8  Ver.  30.  —  "  Signs."    C^P^^   denotes  not  "  signs,"  but  rather  prodigies,  miraculous  signs  of  coming  ertnta. 

4  Ver  32.  —  "  Remnant."  ni^bD  properly  means  "  deliverance,  escape."  Here  tha  abst.  is  used  for  the  eoatt 
khmoller  and  Wiins'-he  render  "  the  escaped." 


2H 


JOEL. 


EXBQETICAXi. 

Ver.  28.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  etc. 
What  is  here  said  of  a  general  outpouring  of  the 
Spirit,  while  connected  with  the  foregoing  prom- 
ise, holds  out  to  Israel  the  prospect  of  a  grander 
dispensation  of  divine  grace  and  of  richer  bless- 
ings than  those  promised  in  the  preceding  chapter, 
(rod  will  manifest  Himself  in  such  a  manner  as 
He  has  never  done  before.  But  this  outpouring 
r>f  the  Spirit  is  viewed  by  the  prophet  as  con- 
nected with  the  great  day  of  the  Lord,  and  as  a 
ijgn  of  its  coming.  But  he  thus  views  it  only  be- 
cause he  sees  in  that  day,  a  day  of  judgment  on 
Israel's  enemies,  and  a  day  of  salvation  to  Israel, 
through  God's  dwelling  in  Zion.  If  vers.  28,  29 
be  considered  as  containing  a  new  promise,  ver. 
30  would  begin  a  new  subject,  which  would  be 
contrary  to  the  tenor  of  the  prophet's  discourse,  as 
it  is  evident  that  these  verses  are  closely  connected. 

Ver.  28.  Afterward,  i.  e.,  after  what  had  been 
before  announced  in  ver.  23 ;  it  is  more  indefi- 
nite than  the  last  days,  although,  in  general,  the 
meaning  is  the  same.  Joel  apparently  imagines 
that  the  events  which  he  here  describes,  will  hap- 
pen in  no  very  distant  future.  "7?B7,  to  pour, 
primarily  refers  to  rain,  or  a  heavy  shower  of  rain ; 
it  here  denotes  the  communicating  of  something 
from  above,  and  in  great  abundance.  This  last 
idea  is  illustrated  in  the  extent  of  the  gift,  —  to 
"  all  flesh,"  and  the  nature  of  the  gift,  —  the  spirit 
of  prophecy  in  various  forms.  n^'lC'SH,  In 
contrast  with  God,  to  whom  the  WH  belongs,  kot. 
<{.,  man  appears  as  ""!t£Q  "  flesh."  This  term  des- 
ignates man  not  simply  as  a  being  in  want  of  this 
"  Spirit,"  but  also  as  one  naturally  fitted  to  re- 
ceive it,  just  as  the  dry  ground  is  fitted  to  receive 
the  rain.  —  All  flesh.  How  is  this  general  expres- 
sion to  be  understood  1  It  is  clear  from  what  fol- 
lows that  there  is  no  limitation  of  sex,  age,  or 
condition,  and  that  not  merely  particular  individ- 
uals, but  that  all  are  to  share  in  this  divine  gift, 
—  a  fulfillment  of  the  wish  of  Moses  (Num.  xi. 
29).  The  connection  and  the  train  of  thought  re- 
quire us  to  extend  the  "  all "  to  mankind  gener- 
ally. —  Shall  prophesy.  This  is  explained  by 
"  prophesying,"  "  dreaming  dreams,"  "  seeing  vis- 
ions." In  this  enumeration  the  most  important 
thing  comes  first,  i.  e.,  the  proper  prophetic  func- 
tion or  power.  S23  means,  not  simply  to  predict 
future  events,  but  generally  to  announce  the  reve- 
lations of  God,  The  whole  people  will  be  the 
vehicle  through  which  these  highest  spiritual  utter- 
ances will  be  made,  and  as  all  barriers  will  be  then 
fcroken  down,  woman  is  named  by  the  side  of  man. 
To  this  prophesying  are  conjoined,  in  a  sort  of 
Becondary  way,  other  modes  of  divine  manifesta- 
tion, "  dreams,"  "  visions."  As  there  is  to  be  no 
difference  of  sex,  so  there  is  to  be  none  of  age,  in 
regard  to  the  sharing  of  this  spirit.  Even  those 
who  would  seem  to  be  unfitted  for  it  shall  receive 
it  —  "old  men  and  children."  Why,  it  may  be 
asked,  shall  "  old  men  dream  dreams  ?  "  Because 
they  are  better  fitted  for  "  dreams,"  just  as  young 
men,  or  children  are  for  "visions,"  though  the  re- 
verse of  this  would  seem  to  be  more  natural.  But 
the  condition  of  things  predicted  by  the  prophet 
nould  be  every  way  extraordinary.  —  And  the 
■ervants.  This  is  added  as  something  very  sin- 
gular. C2|l    '  and  even."     Nay,  something  unheard 


of  shall  then  happen,  namely,  that  slaves  as  well 
as  fieemen  shall  partake  of  this  Spirit.  In  othei 
words,  this  social  distinction  shall  theu  be  abob 
ished.  The  Jewish  interpreters  could  scarcely  com- 
prehend how  this  could  be,  and  hence  the  Sept. 
make  the  servants  and  hand-maidens,  "  God's," 
hri  robs  SovKous  nal  refcy  8ouA.o?  fj.ov ;  so  too  Acts 
ii.  16. 

Ver.  30.  I  will  show  wonders.  What  shall  be 
the  form  of  these  phenomena  of  nature  1  It  is  idla 
to  try  to  answer  the  question.  They  are  evidently 
such  as  had  never  before  been  seen,  though  they 
may  somewhat  resemble  the  plagues  of  Egypt. 
There  will  be  "  blood  "  and  "  fire,"  and  "  pillars  of 
smoke."  The  color  of  blood  appears  in  the  moon  ; 
both  sun  and  moon  are  obscured ;  and  there  are 
signs  of  a  hiding  of  the  face  of  God  who  rules  in 
heaven,  and  consequently  of  his  anger.  These 
signs  will  be  of  a  nature  to  awaken  terror,  and  all 
the  more,  as  the  day  approaches,  for  it  would  seem 
from  vers.  28,  29,  30,  that  there  will  be  hardly  an 
interval  between  the  sign  and  the  day.  Its  men- 
acing aspect  becomes  so  much  the  more  prominent 
inasmuch  as  God  will  theu  manifest  Himself,  not 
merely  in  a  general  way,  but  as  bringing  on  a 
special  crisis.  The  obscuration  of  the  stars  is  of- 
ten mentioned  in  connection  with  the  day  of  judg- 
ment (Ezek.  xxxii.  7;  Am.  viii.  9;  Matt.  xxiv. 
29;  Mark  xiii.  24;  Luke-xxi.  25).  Before  the 
day  of  the  Lord  come.  Hence  these  appearances 
are  signs  of  the  coming  of  this  day.  Its  actual 
coming  and  its  importance  are  set  forth  in  ch.  iii. ; 
here  it  is  described  only  in  a  general  way.  Ver.  32 
goes  on  to  state  that  for  Zion  it  will  bring  neither 
judgment  nor  destruction.  Here  its  tempest  will 
cease.  But  there  is,  at  the  same  time,  an  implied 
exhortation  to  comply  with  the  condition  of  safety. 

Ver.  32.  And  it  shall  come  to  pass,  —  whom 
the  Lord  shall  call.  To  call  on  the  name  of 
Jehovah  is  to  confess  Him,  to  worship  Him  who 
has  revealed,  and  is  revealing  Himself  to  Israel. 
"Whosoever,  73  with  a  special  emphasis,  to  teach 
that  the  day  of  the  Lord  will  not  bring  destruc- 
tion to  all,  though  it  may  have  that  look.  There 
will  be  complete  deliverance  to  those  who  call  on 
the  name  of  the  Lord,  and  to  none  else.  The  rea- 
son is  given,  because  in  Mt.  Zion  is  "deliverance." 
As  Jehovah  had  said.  This  seems  to  point  to 
some  positive  prophetic  promise.  This  divine 
promise  of  safety  to  all  who  call  on  the  name  of 
the  Lord,  based  on  the  promise  concerning  Zion 
and  Jerusalem,  shows  how  closely  related  were 
these  two  places.  They  are  set  forth  as  the  place 
where  the  Lord  dwelt  in  his  sanctuary  with  his 
people,  and  where  his  name  is  known.  The  call- 
ing on  the  Lord  is  wholly  confined  to  Zion  and 
Jerusalem,  though  it  would  be  of  no  avail  to  any 
one  to  be  in  Zion  unless  he  called  on  the  Lord. 
Deliverance.  Many  take  this  term  in  a  concrete 
and  collective  sense,  i.  e.,  "  the  delivered,"  but  the 
other  is  the  more  natural  interpretation.  The 
remnant,  or  "  the  escaped  ; "  there  shall  lie  among 
them  those  whom  the  Lord  calls.  T*"?tP  is  one 
who  has  escaped  from  the  field  of  battle,  or  one 
who  has  been  saved  from  the  fate  of  most  others, 
and  so  implying  that  the  number  is  small.  This 
"  remnant  "  is  evidently  to  be  ad  led  as  a  new  class 
to  those  before  mentioned  as  d  slivered  by  calling 
on  the  name  of  the  Lord,  the  idea  being  that  thei 
had  been  overtaken  by  the  calamitj,  and  though 
delivered,  their  escape  had  been  a  very  narrow  one, 
and  hence  noticed  as  the  result  of  the  Lord's  spe 
cial  and  merciful  call.     Who  are  they  ?    Not  ta6.-tc 


CHAPTER  II.  28-32. 


29 


already  in  Zion  and  Jerusalem ;  but  those  who 
were  called  to  come  there,  t.  e.,  not  to  these  local- 
ities merely,  but  to  communion  with  the  God  who 
calls  and  who  is  enthroned  in  Zion.  This  mani- 
festly means  that  some  of  those  who  would  be 
properly  liable  to  the  judgment,  would  escape  it 
and  share  in  the  salvation  promised  to  Zion.  Who 
are  they  ?  Not  the  inhabitants  of  Judah  living 
outside  the  walls  of  Jerusalem ;  —  a  sense  of  the 
words  entirely  too  limited  and  local.  Besides,  Zion 
and  Jerusalem  must  be  taken  as  including  all  the 
inhabitants  of  Judah  wherever  resident.     It  may, 

ferhaps,  be  inferred  from  eh.  iii.  that  they  are  the 
sraelites  scattered  among  the  nations,  whom  the 
Lord  promises  (iii.  16)  to  bring  again.  Yet  they 
can  scarcely  be  described  as  the  "remnant,"  or 
the  "  escaped,"  since  their  deliverance  is  the  very 
object  of  the  judgment  which  falls  upon  the  heathen 
world.  Why  not  understand  by  the  "remnant," 
the  heathen  ?  They  are  both  far  off,  and  liable  to 
the  judgment.  It  would  still  be  true  that  while 
the  heathen  world  in  general  will  be  the  object  of 
the  judgment  in  the  day  of  the  Lord,  some  of 
them  will  escape  through  the  mercy  of  Jehovah. 
This  is  certainly  only  a  faint  indication  of  the 
calling  of  the  Gentiles.  This  last  fact  is  not  dis- 
tinctly announced,  the  heathen  as  such  not  having 
been  as  yet  named.  There  is  a  close  resemblance 
between  ver.  32  and  Ob.  17,  so  that  if  the  latter 
was  the  earlier  prophet,  we  might  suppose  that  his 
words  had  been  modified  by  Joel.  Obadiah  says. 
"  there  shall  not  be  any  remaining  of  the  house 
of  Esau,"  in  the  day  of  the  Lord.  Joel  also  says, 
that  this  day  shall  be  one  of  judgment  to  all  out- 
side of  Zion,  for  all  the  heathen.  But  he  does 
not  mean  that  none  of  them  shall  escape,  for  he 
admits  it  to  be  possible  that  Jehovah  might  call 
some  of  them.  Joel  thus  takes  a  step  in  advance 
of  Obadiah,  and  indicates,  though  it  may  be  ob- 
scurely, the  work  that  should  be  done  by  later 
prophets. 

[Pusey :  Ver.  28.  All  flesh  is  the  name  for  all 
mankind.  The  words  all  flesh  are  in  the  Penta- 
teuch, and  in  one  place  in  Daniel,  used  in  a  yet 
wider  sense,  of  everything  which  has  life  ;  but,  in 
no  one  case,  in  any  narrower  sense.  It  does  not 
include  every  individual  in  the  race,  but  it  includes 
the  whole  race,  and  individuals  throughout  it,  in 
every  nation,  sex,  or  condition,  Jew  or  Gentile, 
Greek  or  Barbarian,  i.  e.,  educated  or  uneducated, 
rich  or  poor,  bond  or  free,  male  or  female.  On 
all  was  to  be  poured  the  Holy  Spirit.  —  Ver.  29. 
St.  Peter,  in  declaring  that  these  words  began  to 
be  fulfilled  in  the  day  of  Pentecost,  quotes  them 
with  two  lesser  differences:  "I  will  pour  out  of 
my  Spirit  and  upon  My  servants  and  My  hand- 
maidens." The  words  declare  something  in  addi- 
tion, but  do  not  alter  the  meaning,  and  so  St.  Peter 
quotes  them  as  they  lay  in  the  Greek,  which,  prob- 
ably, was  the  language  known  by  most  of  the 
mixed  multitude  to  whom  he  spake.  The  words 
"  My  Spirit,"  express  the  largeness  and  fullness 
of  the  gift.  The  words  "  of  my  Spirit,"  express, 
in  part,  that  He  who  is  infinite  cannot  be  con- 
tained by  us  who  are  finite.  The  words  "  the  ser- 
rants,"  mark  the  outward  condition.  The  words 
"  my  servants,"  declare  that  there  should  be  no 
yfference  between  bond  and  free. 

Ver  32.  Call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord.  To 
tall  on  the  name  of  the  Lord  is  to  worship  Him 
»s  He  is,  depending  upon  Him.  The  name  of  the 
Lord  expresses  his  true  Being,  that  which  He  is. 
For  the  name  rendered,  The  Lord,  expresses  that 
He  is    and  that  He  alone  is,  the  self-same   the  un- 


changeable;  the  name  rendered  God  is  not  th« 
special  name  of  God.  — F.] 

[Wiinsche  :  Ver.  28.  My  Spirit.  The  Spirit  o. 
God  is  the  divine  analogue  of  the  spirit  of  man. 
It  is  the  true  life  principle  of  men  ;  the  source  of 
physical  life  in  the  world  of  nature,  of  spiritual 
life  in  the  sphere  of  religion,  of  all  goodness,  truth, 
rectitude,  and  beauty.  Whatever  the  human  mind 
thinks,  feels,  wills,  fashions,  in  regard  to  any  one 
of  these  objects  is,  in  one  sense,  an  outflow  of  the 
Divine  Spirit.  The  prayer  that  ascend^  to  heaven 
from  a  devout  heart,  the  self  consecration,  the 
holy  enthusiasm  which  distinguished  the  prophets, 
and  fitted  them  to  proclaim  to  the  people  GodV 
judgment  and  his  mercy,  —  all  these  are  expres 
sions  and  gifts  of  the  Divine  Spirit.  AH  flesh 
The  word  is  used  in  Heb.  to  denote  the  totality  of 
living  being  on  earth,  beasts  and  men  (Gen.  vi. 
13  ;  vii.  15,  etc.) ;  and  then  in  a  more  limited 
sense,  for  the  human  race.  The  connection  shows 
that,  here,  it  is  taken  in  the  latter  sense.  Cred- 
ner,  however,  gives  it  the  wider  meaning  so  as  to 
include  the  irrational  animals,  and  refers  in  con- 
firmation of  his  view  to  the  prediction  of  Isaiab 
xi.  6-9,  concerning  the  "  wolf  and  the  lamb,  the 
leopard  and  the  kid,"  etc.  But  this  friendly  union 
of  wild  and  tame  animals  is  not  represented  by 
the  prophet  as  the  result  of  men's  enlarged  knowl- 
edge of  God.  Man  alone  is  the  image  of  God  ; 
he  alone  is  a  fit  organ  of  the  Divine  Spirit ;  ha 
alone  has  the  capacity  to  receive  the  gift  here  de- 
scribed, which,  therefore,  cannot  be  extended  to  the 
lower  forms  of  animal  life. 

Ver.  32.  As  Jehovah  hath  said.  There  is  no  ref- 
erence here  to  a  lost  prophecy  ( Meier) ;  nor  to  an 
older  writing  of  Joel  (Ewald)  ;  nor  to  Obadiah 
(Keil).  The  meaning  simply  is  that  Joel,  the  per- 
son speaking,  had  a  divine  revelation  of  the  fact, 
that  where  God's  throne  is,  there  his  true  worship- 
pers shall  also  be.  Shall  call.  The  word  has  a 
pregnant  sense,  conveying  the  idea  that  the  "  de- 
liverance "  depends  not  on  the  worshippers  of  God 
alone,  but  also  upon  God  himself.  Only  those 
whom  the  Lord  calls  or  chooses,  and  who  call 
upon  or  choose  Him  shall  be  saved.  Most  of  the 
older  and  later  expositors  take  "  call  "  in  a  predes- 
tinative  sense.  The  Chald.  has  quos  dominus  des- 
tinat.  —  F.] 

THEOLOGICAL. 

1 .  From  the  very  first  the  prophets  point  to  a 
great  decisive  Hereafter.  In  their  being  able  to 
do  this  lay  their  strength.  Living  in  the  present, 
their  eyes  were  ever  turned  to  the  future,  or  rather 
the  end,  the  consummation  of  all  things.  Hence 
the  power  of  their  exhortations  and  promises  to 
their  contemporaries.  Their  influence  would  have 
been  very  frail  and  feeble,  if  they  had  not  had  a 
firm  faith  in  a  future,  when  the  salvation  of  God 
should  be  fully  realized. 

2.  Outpouring  of  the  Spirit  of  God  upon  all 
flesh.  It  is  evident  from  the  context  that  the 
prophet  himself  did  not  suppose  that  this  "  out- 
pouring "  would  extend  beyond  the  people  of  Is- 
rael. This  was  its  field  (ver.  27).  Here  God  will 
reveal  Himself;  here  in  the  day  of  the  Lord  the 
judgment  will  take  place,  here  all  nations  shall  ba 
gathered.  The  whole  of  ch.  iii.  shows  that  the 
prophet  considered  the  heathen  world  as  the  en- 
emy of  God's  people.  He  does  not  put  the  heathen 
on  the  same  footing-  with  Israel,  but  on  the  con 
trary  he  directs  attention  exclusively  to  the  higk 
position  of  Israel  as  God's  people.     It  presupjKkse 


SO 


JOEL,. 


the  conversion  of  the  heathen,  and  their  reception 
among  God's  people.  As  he  nowhere  predicts 
such  a  conversion,  his  promise  of  an  outpouring 
of  the  Spirit  upon  all  flesh  cannot  here  include  the 
heathen  ;  even  if  we  refer  the  phrase  "  whom  the 
Lord  shall  call,"  to  a  selection  of  the  heathen,  it 
is  all  the  more  evident  that  the  "  all  flesh  "  can- 
not include  them.  For  the  calling  of  individual 
heathen  could  not  have  the  same  prominence  that 
would  belong  to  the  out-pouring  of  the  Spirit  on 
the  whole  heathen  world.  Joel  might  have  as- 
sumed that  some  called  out  of  the  heathen  world 
would  partake  of  the  blessing  given  to  Israel.  To 
Israel  the  promise  was  of  something  not  only 
great  but  new,  namely,  the  impartation  of  the 
Spirit  to  persons  of  all  ages  and  conditions.  Pour- 
ing out  as  a  symbol  of  this  impartation  was  never 
before  used  to  denote  the  gift  of  the  Spirit.  Thus 
far  only  individuals  in  particular  localities  had  re- 
ceived it.  The  gift  was,  indeed,  a  necessary  result 
of  the  covenant  relation  in  which  Jehovah  stood 
to  Israel,  but  hitherto  his  Spirit  had  come  only  on 
individuals,  fitting  them  to  become  divine  messen- 
gers. Such  a  limitation,  however,  did  not  accord 
with  the  true  idea  of  God's  people,  which  implies 
that  they  should  all  be  partakers  of  his  Spirit. 
This  should  be  fully  realized  in  the  future.  Every 
barrier  shall  be  broken  down,  and  the  reception  of 
this  Spirit  shall  be  limited  neither  by  age,  sex,  nor 
condition.  It  would  come  in  the  form  of  pro- 
phetic dreams  and  visions,  giving  those  who  re- 
ceived it  a  deeper  insight  into  divine  things,  and 
make  them  organs  of  divine  revelation. 

This  promise,  as  given  by  the  prophet,  is  two- 
fold. On  the  one  hand,  it  will  thus  be  seen  that 
Jehovah  is  in  the  midst  of  Israel.  On  the  other 
hand,  this  general  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  will 
be  a  preparatory  warning  of  the  coming  of  the  day 
of  the  Lord.  That  day  will  be  one  of  immediate 
and  decisive  manifestation  of  God,  and  its  ap- 
proach will  be  heralded  by  new  and  startling  events 
fitted  to  excite  in  the  minds  of  men  eager  expecta- 
tion, and  to  rouse  them  to  seek  salvation  before  it 
was  too  late.  These  warnings  may  consist  of  ex- 
traordinary phenomena  in  the  world  of  nature,  or 
of  similar  phenomena  in  the  sphere  of  mind.  From 
the  spirituality  of  the  religion  of  Jehovah  we  might 
expect  that  occurrences  of  the  latter  class  would 
predominate.  Perhaps  we  may  go  farther  and  say 
that  the  object  of  these  remarkable  events,  of  this 
prophesying,  of  these  dreams  and  visions,  is  the 
day  of  the  Lord  itself.  It  is  clear  that  by  this  gen- 
eral outpouring  of  the  Spirit  the  way  would  be  pre- 
pared for  such  a  result  of  the  day  "of  the  Lord  as 
must  redound  to  the  glory  of  Israel.  Since  Jeho- 
vah thus  recognizes  Israel  as  his  people,  by  making 
them  all  individually  organs  of  his  revelation,  He 
must,  while  blessing  them,  resist  and  punish  their 
enemies.  This  double  aspect  of  the  day  of  the 
Lord,  as  one  of  judgment,  and  of  redemption,  is 
here  very  distinctly  declared.  The  deliverance  of 
individuals  will  not  come  to  them  as  a  matter  of 
course.  If  they  escape  the  terrors  of  that  day,  and 
share  in  the  salvation  of  God's  people,  it  can  only 
be  by  their  complying  with  the  conditions  on  which 
it  is  secured. 

When  shall  this  promise  of  a  general  outpour- 
ing  of  the  Spirit  be  fulfilled?  From  the  phrase 
"  after  this,"  the  prophet  seems  to  have  regarded 
it  as  connected  with  the  promise  given  in  the  earlier 
,jart  of  the  chapter.  But  it  does  not  follow  that 
ae  looked  upon  it  as  near  at  hand.  The  prophets 
»ften  connect  promises  relating  to  the  present,  very 
•.Icsely  with  those  pertaining  to  the  far  distant  fu- 


ture. In  this  respect  Joel  and  the  later  propheta 
agree.  The  latter  represent  the  gift  of  the  Spirit 
in  its  fullness  to  the  covenant  people,  as  a  promi- 
nent feature  of  the  Messianic  age,  or  of  the  New 
Covenant.  Jer.  xxxii.  15;  lvi.  13;  Ez.  xxxvi.  26  ; 
Zech.  xii.  10.  Hence  we  should,  perhaps,  designate 
this  prophecy  as  in  a  general  way  Messianic,  though 
Joel  does  not  speak  directly  of  the  Messiah,  and 
we  should  look  for  its  fulfillment  after  the  advent 
of  Messiah.  Thus  St.  Peter  (Acts  ii.  17)  saw  its 
accomplishment  in  the  miracle  of  Pentecost.     He 

expressly  refers  the  75"Trj^  —  eV  rats  cVxaTau 
fifiepuK,  to  the  Messianic  age.  He  distinctly  recog- 
nizes the  Messiah  as  the  mediator  through  whom 
this  rich  and  general  bestowment  of  the  Spirit 
should  come.  Like  the  prophet,  he  understood  the 
"  all  flesh,"  to  mean,  in  the  first  instance,  the  cov- 
enant people,  though  he  declares  that  the  promise 
extended  also  to  those  who  were  "  afar  off."  Joel 
only  intimates  that  the  latter  will  escape,  but  does 
not  say,  in  so  many  words,  that  the  Spirit  will  be 
<riven  to  them.  Peter  evidently  regarded  —  as  Joel 
did —  this  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  as  a  sign  of  the 
Day  of  the  Lord,  i.  e.,  in  the  New  Testament  sense  ol 
the  term,  as  a  day  of  Parousia,  and  so  quotes  vers. 
28-32.  As  he  saw  one  part  of  the  prediction  accom- 
plished, he  naturally  looked  for  the  fulfillment  of 
the  other.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Apos- 
tles, at  least  for  a  time,  thought  that  the  Tlapouata, 
or  the  Coming  of  the  Lord,  was  nigh  at  hand,  and 
such  prophecies  as  the  one  before  us,  would  tend 
to  confirm  them  in  that  expectation.  On  the  dav 
of  Pentecost,  Peter  saw  the  Spirit  poured  out,  not 
indeed  on  "all  flesh,"  even  in  the  limited  sense  of 
all  Israel,  but  he  was  sure  that  the  promise  of  it 
embraced  the  whole  covenant  people,  and  so  he 
opens  to  all  the  prospect  of  the  gift,  on  condition 
of  repentance. 

But  though  the  wonders  of  Pentecost  were  the 
first  and  literal  fulfillment  of  this  prophecy,  they 
by  no  means  exhausted  its  meaning.  The  only 
effect  of  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  recognized 
by  Joel,  is  the  prophetic,  and  on  this  memorable 
day,  it  certainly  appeared  in  an  ecstatic  form.  But 
we  need  only  to  look  into  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul 
to  discover  that  the  influence  of  the  irveC/xa  ayiov 
which  Christ  gives  is  not  exhausted  by  such  re- 
sults ;  on  the  contrary,  the  grandest  effect  of  it  is 
the  regeneration  of  the  whoie  man.  This  deeper, 
ethico-religious  conception  of  the  gift  of  the  Spirit, 
founded  on  the  declarations  of  the  later  prophets 
Isaiah,  Jeremiah,  and  Ezekiel,  is  certainly  the  New 
Testament  one.  Joel's  idea  of  the  close  connection 
between  the  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  and  "  the 
day,"  is  in  one  sense  a  mistaken  one,  since  the 
"  outpouring  "  came,  but  not  the  "  day,"  yet  in 
another  view  it  is  perfectly  correct.  The  two  are 
most  nearly  related.  With  Messiah  have  come  the 
e<rxaTai  ii/xcpat ;  and  the  gift  of  the  Spirit  is,  and 
will  continue  to  be,  a  sign  of  the  Day  of  the  Lord, 
a  proof  that  God  is  in  the  midst  of  his  people,  and 
will  give  them  the  victory  over  all  their  enemies.  — 
Finally,  we  must  not  overlook  the  limits  of  the 
field  of  the  Spirit's  operations  as  described  by  Ho« 
sea.  He,  indeed,  considered  Israel  alone  as  God's 
people,  and  that  on  Israel  alone  would  the  Spirit 
be  poured  out.  But  as  we  know  from  the  New 
Testament  that  Christ's  disciples  are  not  limited 
to  Israel,  neither  are  God's  people,  so  we  are  sure 
that  this  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  is  confined  to 
them,  »".  e.,  to  the  spiritual  Israel,  to  all  who,  by 
faith,  are  made  one  with  Christ.  AH  such  partaki 
of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


CHAPTER   II.   18-32. 


31 


[In  this  somewhat  prolix  and  verbose  disserta- 
tion, the  author  confounds  two  quite  distinct  ques- 
tions, namely,  What  is  the  real  meaning  of  the 
prophecy — whom  does  it  embrace,  —  and  when 
and  how  will  it  be  completely  fulfilled  ?  and  How 
far  did  Joel  comprehend  the  real  purport  of  the 
prophetic  promise?,  which  he  was  inspired  to  utter  ? 
This  last  question  it  is  impossible  to  answer,  be- 
cause Joel  has  left  no  explanation  of  his  predic- 
tion, We  have  nothing  but  the  prophecy  itself. 
Therefore  we  have  no  means  of  determining  wheth- 
er he  took  the  "  all  flesh,"  as  meaning  simply  Is- 
rael, or  in  its  wider  sense.  After  all,  the  question  is 
one  of  no  practical  importance.  The  grand  inquiry 
is.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  prophecy  1  —  F. 

WimscnE  :  Credner  is  clearly  wrong  when  he 
says  that  Peter  made  a  false  application  of  this 
prophecy.  No  man  can  deny  that  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost,  the  prediction  of  Joel  began  to  be  ac- 
complished. We  say  designedly,  "  began  to  be 
accomplished,"  for  although  the  Christian  Church 
has  been  growing  in  divine  knowledge,  and  has 
been  working  for  the  common  good  of  all  sexes, 
ages,  and  classes,  more  than  eighteen  hundred 
years  since  that  day,  the  prophecy  is  not  yet  ful- 
filled. There  are  predictions,  which  have  found 
their  fulfillment  in  particular  historical  events; 
and  there  are  others  which  embrace  the  entire  field 
of  humanity,  and  Joel's  belongs  to  this  latter  class. 
Its  complete  accomplishment  will  be  the  history  of 
the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth,  down  to  the  end  of 
time.  —  F.] 

3.  Let  us  now  consider  what  the  prophet  teaches 
in  regard  to  the  condition  of  deliverance,  in  this 
"  terrible  day  of  the  Lord."  It  is  not  sharing  in 
those  extraordinary  influences  of  the  Spirit,  whose 
results  are  involuntary,  but  "calling  on  the  name 
of  the  Lord,"  a  free  act,  which  every  one  who 
pleases  can  perform.  There  is  something  to  be 
done  by  each  individual  for  himself,  and  all  are 
exhorted  to  do  it.  Spiritual  gifts  do  not  necessa- 
rily involve  spiritual  regeneration.  So  we  find  to 
have  been  the  case  in  New  Testament  history,  with 
the  miraculous  xap(<rlJLaTa>  which  at  first  predomi- 
nated, but  gradually  disappeared,  giving  place  to 
a  more  natural  and  tranquil,  a  purer  and  deeper 
spiritual  life.  The  condition  of  deliverance  is 
stated  in  ver.  32,  and  all  are  exhorted  to  fulfill  it. 
External  membership  with  the  people  of  Israel  will 
not,  of  itself,  secure  salvation  ;  but  the  condition 
is  one  so  simple  and  easy,  so  really  within  the 
power  of  every  one,  that  the  verse  has  more  the 
aspect  of  a  promise  than  an  exhortation.  There 
is  no  real  need  that  any  one  should  be  afraid  of 
the  coming  of  the  "  terrible  day."  Its  terrors  may 
be  escaped  by  simply  calling  on  the  Lord  in  Zion 
aud  Jerusalem,  the  place  of  worship.  Therefore 
no  one  need  ask,  Where  shall  I  find  the  Lord  on 
whom  I  must  call  ?  for  the  Lord  Himself  has 
named  the  place  of  his  abode. 

This  alone  is  necessary,  "  to  call  on  the  Lord." 
To  do  this,  it  is  not  absolutely  requisite  that  one 
should  belong  to  Israel.  This  is  plainly  taught  by 
the  words  just  quoted.  Hence  Paul  bases  upon 
them  the  equal  rights  of  Jews  and  Gentiles  ?  But 
ioes  this  exposition  suit  the  context,  in  which  the 
prophet  so  expressly  connects  the  deliverance  with 
Zion  and  Jerusalem1?  If  we  look  carefully  into 
the  matter,  we  shall  find  that  it  does.  Zion  is  the 
place  where  God  has  revealed  Himself.  Without 
jnch  a  revelation  as  that  made  in  Zion,  neither 
tailing  on  the  Lord,  nor  salvation,  would  have 
been  possible.  Zion  then  (not  in  the  local  sense) 
.«  the  seat  and  centre  of  salvation ;  because  here 


God  has  manifested  Himself  Paul  knew  that  9 
Greek,  simply  as  such,  could  not  call  upon  the 
Lord,  since  he  did  not  even  know  the  Lord  whc 
had  revealed  Himself  in  Israel.  Those  who  would 
call  upon  Him,  as  Paul  teaches,  must  believe  in 
Him,  and  this  implies  that  He  had  been  preached 
to  them,  and  this  was  done  by  those  who  made 
known  to  the  heathen  the  God  who  has  manifested 
Himself  in  Zion.  Paul  denies  that  conformity  to 
the  Jewish  law  is  a  condition  of  salvation.  All  this 
shows  the  Apostle's  deep  insight  into  the  real 
meaning  of  Scripture.  His  heart  beat  for  those 
afar  off;  he  feels,  and  discovers  instinctively,  that 
the  barriers  which  had  separated  Jew  and  Gentile 
were  broken  down  by  the  very  prophetic  word 
which  made  salvation  dependent  on  one  thing 
alone,  a  thing  within  the  reach  equally  of  the  Gen- 
tile and  the  Jew.  He  evidently  took  the  words 
"  whosoever  shall  call,"  etc.,  in  a  sense  large  enough 
to  embrace  the  whole  Gentile  world.  On  exeget- 
ical  grounds,  as  we  have  seen,  we  are  authorized 
though  not.  compelled  to  give  them  this  breadth  of 
meaning.  In  the  last  clause  of  ver.  32  the  phrase 
occurs,  "  whom  the  Lord  shall  call,"  and  it  con- 
veys the  idea  that  salvation  is  not  a  matter  of 
right,  but  of  grace  alone.  With  regard  to  all  who 
are  afar  off  this  divine  call  is  the  cause  of  deliver- 
ance. If  they  had  not  been  thus  called  they  must 
certainly  have  perished,  so  that  they  owe  their  es- 
cape solely  to  the  gracious  call  of  God.  But  it  is 
at  the  same  time  clearly  implied  that  this  call  be- 
comes effective  and  saving  only  when  the  man  him 
self  turns  to  the  Lord. 


HOMILETICAL. 

Ver.  28.  Afterward.  A  prophetic  word  of  pro- 
found meaning.  When  ?  The  prophets  them 
selves  did  not  know  Yet  these  promises  were, 
for  the  present,  a  light  shining  in  a  dark  place. 
But  what  kings  and  prophets  of  old  desired  to  see 
and  saw  not,  we  see,  who  live  in  the  times  of  ful 
fillment.  To  us  the  Afterward  has  become  Now. 
To  many,  it  is  only  a  Once,  a  Formerly.  They 
forget  that  the  fulfillment  of  these  prophetic  words 
never  grows  old,  but  has  a  perpetual  Now,  which 
it  becomes  us  to  comprehend  and  improve  until 
the  Lord  comes.  For  as  that  Afterward  has  be- 
come a  Now,  in  Him  in  whom  all  the  promises  are 
yea  and  amen,  so  He  still  points  us  to  a  more  dis- 
tant Afterward,  when  there  will  be  nothing  new  in 
distinction  from  the  old,  except  as  sight  is  distin- 
guished from  faith,  and  the  end  from  the  begin- 
ning. 

/  will  pour  out  my  Spirit.  True  fellowship  with 
God  implies  the  participation  of  the  Spirit  of 
God.  So  long  as  this  privilege  is  confined  to  in- 
dividual communion  with  God,  on  the  part  of  men, 
it  must  be  simply  an  object  of  desire  and  hope, 
notwithstanding  the  means  used  to  extend  it. 
Blessed  privilege  of  the  Now  Covenant,  that  in 
Christ  every  one  may  receive  the  Spirit  of  God. 
All  special  privileges  are  done  away ;  all  separat- 
ing walls  are  broken  down.  The  lowest  as  well 
as  the  loftiest  can  now  aspire  to  be  taught  by  the 
Spirit  of  God,  and  so  to  become  a  co-worker  with 
God.  How  wonderful  the  condescension  and  the 
grace  of  God  !  (See  Gal.  iii.  28.)  How  plain  is  it 
that  the  religion  of  the  Old  Testament,  though  it- 
self far  from  attaining  this  end,  foreshadowed  it, 
and  revealed  the  way  to  it. 

[Henry  :  God  hath  reserved  some  better  thing* 
for  us,  the  kingdom  of  jjrace,  and  the  kingdom  of 


JOEL. 


glory,  and  the  happiness  of  true  believers  in  both. 
We  often  read  in  the  Old  Testament  of  the  Spirit 
of  the  Lord  coming  like  drops,  as  it  were,  upon 
the  judges  anl  prophets  whom  God  raised  up  for 
extraordinary  services,  but  now,  the  Spirit  shall 
be  pouied  out  plentifully,  in  a  full  stream. 

Posey  :  God  alone  can  be  poured  out  into  the 
soul,  so  as  to  possess  it,  enlighten  it,  teach,  kindle, 
bend,  move  it  as  He  wills,  sanctify,  satiate,  fill  it. 
The  prophetic  word  circles  round  to  that  where- 
with it  began,  the  all-containing  promise  of  the 
large  outpouring  of  the  Spirit  of  God  ;  and  that, 
upon  those  whom  the  carnal  Jews  at  all  times 
would  least  expect  to  receive  it.  It  began  with  in- 
cluding the  heathen  ;  it  instances  individual  gifts, 
and  then  it  ends  by  resting  on  the  slaves.  The 
order  of  the  words  is  significant.  He  begins  / 
trill  pour  out  my  Spirit  on  all  flesh,  and  then  in 
order  to  leave  the  mind  resting  on  these  same  great 
words,  He  inverts  the  order  and  ends,  and  upon  the 
servants,  etc.  It  leaves  the  thoughts  resting  on  the 
great  words  "  /  will  pour  out  my  Spirit." 

Robinson  :  A  Christian  even  now,  animated 
and  influenced  by  the  Holy  Ghost  is  a  wonderful 
being,  as  superior  to  the  rest  of  mankind,  as  man 
is  superior  to  the  beasts  of  the  field.  But  what 
will  he  be  then  ?  There  have  been  mighty  men 
amongst  us,  a  Milton,  a  Boyle,  a  Newton  in  a 
former  age,  and  some  in  the  present,  who,  with 
the  highest  gifts  of  genius,  have  been  endowed 
with  eminent  gifts  and  graces  of  the  Holy  Spirit ; 
but  who  shall  say  in  that  future  dispensation,  to 
what  heights  of  wisdom  and  knowledge  and  power 
man  may  be  advanced  ?  Every  discovery  in  science, 
every  progressive  improvement,  such  as  the  present 
age  has  developed,  are  prophecies  and  earnests  of 
that  glorious  time  here  promised.  —  F.] 

Ver.  30.  Show  wonders.  The  New  Covenant 
has  brought  salvation,  but  it  also  brings  sifting 
judgments  corresponding  to  the  greatness  of  this 
salvation.  The  question  now  is,  how  men  will 
deal  with  it ;  and  most  certain  is  it  that  God  will 
remove  everything  opposed  to  Him  and  his  king- 
lom.  Hence,  with  the  salvation  in  Christ,  there 
was  need  of  this  last  separating  judgment.  Great 
displays  of  God's  grace  and  great  judgments 
often  go  together,  the  latter  preparing  the  way 
for  the  former.  So  was  it  in  Jerusalem.  Those 
who  despised  the  kindly  tongues  of  flame  on  the 
day  of  Pentecost,  had  blood,  fire,  and  vapor  of 
.-moke  as  the  symbols  of  destruction.  So  is  it 
now.  Those  who  quench  the  Spirit,  despise  proph- 
esyings,  and  give  themselves  up  to  the  flesh  and 
the  world  will  find  "  that  day  "  all  the  more  terri- 
ble, and  that  their  damnation  slumbereth  not. 
The  best  thing  is  to  be  always  ready  for  that  day 
of  God.  If  we  delay  until  it  actually  comes,  it 
may  be  too  late. 

[Henry:  The  judgments  of  God  upon  a  sinful 
world,  and  the  frequent  destruction  of  wicked  king- 


doms by  fire  and  sword,  are  prefaces  to  and  pres- 
ages of  the  judgment  of  the  wo.  Id  in  the  last  day. 

Pusey  :  Each  revelation  of  God  prepares  th« 
way  for  another,  until  that  last  revelation  of  his 
love  and  of  his  wrath  in  the  great  day.  — F.] 

Ver.  32.  Whosoever  calleth.  Happy  they  who 
are  found  watching  and  praying  when  the  Lord 
comes.  We  may  escape  the  judgment,  therefore 
we  should  not  despair.  All  that  is  necessary  is 
believing  prayer  to  God.  For  every  one  who  con- 
fesses God,  He  will  confess.  But  such  escape  we 
must  earnestly  seek  for  ourselves.  The  coming  of 
Christ  has  two  aspects ;  to  the  godless,  it  will  be 
a  day  of  condemnation  and  wrath :  *o  believers, 
a  day  of  redemption  and  refreshing.  In  Zion  and 
Jerusalem,  i.  e.,  in  the  God  who  is  there  revealed. 
is  redemption.  He  who  believes  in  Christ  is  in 
Zion,  for  he  confesses  Him  as  the  God  of  Zion 
To  Him  belongs  the  glory  of  our  salvation.  Ex- 
amine thyself  to  see  thy  real  condition.  The  abil- 
ity to  stand  in  the  judgment  will  come,  not  from 
any  outward  excellence,  nor  even  from  gracious 
privileges  or  preeminence.  The  remnant.  God  de- 
sires not  to  destroy,  but  to  save.  Hence  his  con- 
stant and  gracious  call  to  all  who  are  afar  off,  to 
come  and  be  saved.  E\en  the  heathen,  who  be- 
long not  to  his  chosen  people,  can  obtain  salvation 
Not  indeed  unless  He  calls  them ;  but  if  lie  does 
call  and  they  yield  to  it  through  his  grace,  they 
share  in  the  gifts  of  his  people.  Art  thou  among 
the  called  ones  of  God  ?  Hast  thou  heard  his 
call  ?  Thou  mayest  be  called  and  yet  perish  as 
last.  Many  are  called,  few  chosen.  God  calls  aL, 
but  He,  in  turn,  will  be  called  upon  in  faith. 

[Henry  :  This  is  ground  of  comfort  and  hope 
to  sinners,  that  whatever  danger  there  is  in  their 
case,  there  is  also  deliverance  for  them,  if  it  be  not 
their  own  fault.  And  if  we  would  share  in  this 
deliverance  we  must  apply  ourselves  to  the  Gospel 
Zion,  to  God's  Jerusalem.  It  is  the  praying  rem- 
nant that  shall  be  the  saved  remnant.  And  it  will 
aggravate  the  ruin  of  those  who  perish,  that  they 
might  have  been  saved  on  such  easy  terms.  Those 
only  shall  be  delivered  in  the  great  day  that  are 
now  effectually  called  from  sin  to  God,  from  self 
to  Christ, from  things  below  to  things  above. 

Scott  :  The  Gospel  calls  men  in  general  to 
partake  of  its  blessings,  and  of  that  salvation 
which  is  revealed  and  placed  in  the  Church ;  and 
"  whosoever  shall  call  upon  the  name  of  the  Lord  " 
Jesus,  as  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Saviour  of  sin- 
ners, shall  be  delivered  from  the  wrath  to  come. 
This  is  the  happy  case  of  that  remnant  of  every 
age  and  people  whom  the  Lord  calls  by  his  regen- 
erating Spirit ;  all  things  shall  work  together  for 
their  good  ;  they  may  look  forward  with  comfort 
for  the  day,  when  nature  shall  expire  in  convul- 
sions, assured  that  then  their  eternal  redemption 
shall  be  perfected.  —  F.] 


SECTION  III. 
The  Day  of  the  Lord  brings /uU  Salvation  to  Israel  and  the  Destruction  of  his  Enemies 

Chapter  in. 


1    For  behold,  iti  those  days,1  and  at  that  time 

When  I  shall  bring  again  the  captivity  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem: 


CHAPTER   III. 


2  That  I  will  gather  all  the  nations, 

And  will  bring  them  down  into  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat ; 

And  there  will  I  deal  with  (or  judge)  them,*  for  my  people,  and  my  heritage,3  Israel. 

Because  they  scattered  them  among  the  nations,4 

And  divided  my  land. 

3  And  they  cast  lots  for  my  people, 
They  bartered  a  boy  for  a  harlot, 

And  sold  a  maiden  for  wine,5  and  drank  it. 

4  And,  also,  what  have  ye  to  do  with  me,  Tyre  and  Sidon, 
And  all  the  borders5  of  Philistia? 

Would  you  retaliate  7  upon  me, 

Or  render  me  a  recompense  ? 

Soon  and  swiftly8  will  1 1  ring  your  recompense  on  your  own  head. 

5  Because  ye  have  taken  away  l.  /  silver  and  my  gold, 

And  have  brought  into  your  temjiles  my  goodly  desirable  things,9 

6  And  ye  have  sold  the  sons  of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  to  the  sons  of  Javan, 
That  ye  might  remove  them  far  away  from  their  border. 

7  Behold,  I  will  raise ,0  them  up  out  of  the  place  whore  ye  have  sold  them, 
And  will  return  your  retaliation  on  your  own  head. 

8  And  I  will  sell  your  sons  and  your  daughters  into  the  hands  of  the  sons  of  Judab, 
And  they  shall  sell  them  to  the  Sabeans,  to  a  distant  nation, 

For  Jehovah  hath  spoken  it. 

9  Proclaim  this  among  the  nations, 
Declare  (sanctify)  a  war, 
Arouse  the  mighty  ones, 

Let  all  the  men  of  war  draw  near,  come  up. 

10  Beat  your  mattocks  "  into  swords, 
And  your  pruning-hooks  into  spears, 
Let  the  weak  say,  I  am  strong. 

11  Hasten I2  and  come, 

All  ye  nations  round  about,  and  assemble  yourselves  ; 
Then  Jehovah  shall  bring  down 13  thy  mighty  ones. 

12  Let  the  nations  arise  and  come  up 
To  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat, 

For  there  will  T  sit  to  judge  all  the  nations  round  about. 

13  Putin  the  sickle,14 
For  the  harvest  is  ripe  ; 
Come,  tread, 

For  the  wine-press  is  full, 

The  vats  overflow, 

For  their  wickedness  is  great. 

14  Multitudes,  multitudes  in  the  valley  of  decision, 

For  the  day  of  Jehovah  is  near  in  the  valley  of  decision. 

15  The  sun  and  the  moon  are  darkened, 
And  the  stars  withdraw  their  shining, 

16  And  15  Johovah  will  thunder  out  of  Zion, 

And  from  Jerusalem  he  will  give  forth  his  voice, 
So  that  the  heavens  and  the  earth  shall  shake ; 
But  Jehovah  will  be  a  refuge  for  his  people, 
And  a  stronerhold  for  the  sons  of  Israel. 


34  JOEL. 

17  And  ye  shall  know  that  I  Jehovah  am  your  God, 
Dwelling  in  Zion  my  holy  mountain ; 

And  Jerusalem  shall  be  holy, 

And  strangers  shall  no  more  pass  through  her. 

18  And  it  shall  come  to  pass  that  in  that  day  the  mountains  shall  drop  down  with  new 

wine, 
And  the  hills  shall  flow  with  milk, 
And  all  the  river  beds  of  Judah  shall  be  full  of  water, 

And  a  fountain  shall  flow  forth  from  the  house  of  Jehovah, 
And  shall  water  the  valley  of  Shittim. 

19  Egypt  shall  be  a  desolation, 

And  Edoni  shall  be  a  desolate  wilderness, 
For  their  violence  against  Judah's  sons ; 
Because  they  shed  blood  in  their  land. 

20  But  Judah  shall  dwell ,fi  forever, 

And  Jerusalem  from  generation  to  generation  ; 

21  And  I  will  avenge  their  blood,  which  I  have  not  avenged, 
And  Jehovah  will  dwell  in  Zion. 

TEXTUAL   AND   GRAMMATICAL. 

I  Ver.  1.  —  Those  days,  i.  e..  preeminently.  In  Heb.  the  personal  and  demonstrative  pronouns  sometimes  take  the 
article,  thus  rendering  the  expression  all  the  stronger  and  more  emphatic. 

5  Ver.  2.  —  ^flOBfflSl.     For  the  construction  see  Josh.  iv.  2 :  S  Chron.  xxii.  8 ;  Is.  iii.  14  ;  Ezek.  xxxviii.  22.     In 

the  latter  place  T.H  is  used  for  C5. 

3  Ver.  2.  —  *"Ti;i  my  peculium.  The  word  expresses  more  than  ^J?,  my  people.  Israel  is  in  apposition 
with  both  terms. 

*  Ver.  2.  —  The  nations,  i.  e.,  the  neighboring  ones.     See  ver.  12. 

6  Ver.  3.  —  For  wine.    2  is  here  the  2  of  price,  and  according  to  the  rule  is  placed  after  verbs  of  buying  and  selling. 

*  Ver.  4. —  Borders,  fni  \j3  lit,,  circles,  referring  to  the  five  subdivisions  of  Philistia,  namely,  Gaza,  Ashdod, 
Ashkalon,  Gath,  and  Ekron. 

'  Ver.  4.  —  Would  you  retaliate.    Wiinsche  renders  the  clause,  "  WoVU  ilir  ein  Thun  mir  vergelten,"  and  adds  that 

it  is  variously  explained.  The  meaning  depends  on  the  sense  attached  to  2^3.  The  ground  sense  of  its  radical  syllable 
C3  is  fullness,  accumulation.     The  primary  meaning  of  2?23  is  the  same.     It  is  used  —  (1)  Intrans.,  to  be  full,  or 

complete,  specially  of  fruit,  to  be  ripe.  (2)  Trans.,  to  complete,  to  make  full,  i.  e. :  (a)  To  wean,  or  to  take  from  milk 
(Gen.  rri.  8 ;  1  Sam.  xxii.  24 ;  Is.  xxviii.  !().  (b)  To  ripen  with  special  reference  to  fruit,  (c)  To  do  something  with  the 
hands,  »'.  e.,  to  finish  it.  (d)  To  recompense  what  has  been  done  by  another,  so  that  its  end  aud  aim  is  accomplished,  — 
something  done,  in  a  moral  sense,  for  which  men  are  responsible.     It  is  construed  both  with  j  and  pj. 

*  Ver.  4.  —  Soon  and  swiftly.     See  Is.  v.  26.     Pocock  takes  both  the  words  adverbially. 

*  Ver.  5. —  Goodly  desirable  things.  Newcome  renders  the  phrase  desirable  and  goodly.  E^'ltSil  =  not  simply 
"good  things,"  but  "good"  in  a  pregnant  sense,  optima. 

10  Ver.  7.  —  Twill  raise.     D"!*^^     Hiph.  of  the  intrans.     lISs  to  be  hot,  hence  to  be  watchful.   OneKenn.MSS. 

has  UT^J^p    I  am  calling,  or  will  call  them  as  witnesses. 

II  Ver.  10.  —  Mattocks.  fi!D*,frfct.  This  was  an  instrument  of  husbandry  having  an  edge  that  needed  to  be  sharp- 
ened from  time  to  time  (1  Sam.  xxii.  20).     All  the  older  versions  render  it  "  ploughshares,"  which  Tregelles  favors. 

1:1  Ver.  11.  —  ^IffiftS,  a  arro.%  \cy,  perhaps  used  for  *,L"^n  or  "j*^-  The  Sept.  renders  it  <rvva9poi&<r8e.  Vulg. 
erumpile;  Gesen.,  Meier,  and  others,  '*  hasten."  For  the  use  of  the  *1  to  show  the  close  connection  between  the  two 
imperatives,  see  Mic.  iv.  13.  Kimchi,  Ewald,  Meier,  and  others  take  the  following  ^ri£3  as  an  anom.  Niphal  im- 
perative for  ^l^jpri. 

13  Shall  bring  down,  lit,  "  hath  brought  down."     What  He  will  do  is  spoken  of  as  done. 

14  Ver.  13.  —  23?0    the  sickle,  from  the  root  p33  •   hence  the  dag.  fort. 

11  Ver.  16.  —  Hut  Jehovah.     *1  is  here  clearly  antithetic. 

14  Ver.  20.  —  ^^P  is  not  to  be  understood  in  a  passive  sense,  " habilari"  but  actively,  i.  e.,  shall  dwell  in  and 
possess  the  land. 


CHAPTER   III. 


35 


EXEGETICAL. 

Vers.  1-3.  For  behold  in  those  days,  etc.  The 
h3  in  ver.  1  gives  the  reason  for  the  thought  that 
deliverance  can  be  found  only  in  Zion,  in  the  day 
of  the  Lord,  for  then  shall  all  heathen  nations  be 
judged.  In  those  days,  i.  e.,  the  days  that  shall 
come,  the  "afterward"  of  the  previous  chapter. 
The  signs  of  the  event  belong  essentially  to  the 
event  itself;  but  the  time  is  more  exactly  deter- 
mined by  the  statement  "when  I  shall  bring 
again,"  etc.  This  distinctly  shows  that  the  object 
of  the  day  of  the  Lord  is,  the  deliverance  of  the 
people  of  God.  The  judgment  of  the  heathen 
world  is  simply  a  means  to  that  end.  Bring:  back 
the  captivity,  or  to  return  the  captivity,  means 
to  make  an  end  of  it.  This  phrase,  from  the  use 
here  made  of  it  to  designate  the  epoch  of  judg- 
ment as  a  terminus  technicus  for  a  restitutio  in 
integrum  promised  to  God's  people,  may  have  been 
borrowed  from  some  more  ancient  prophecy.  The 
condition  out  of  which  the  captivity  is  brought  ap- 
pears from  the  close  of  ver.  2.  But  the  conclusion 
of  the  chapter  shows,  that  the  captivity  is  not 
simply  to  end,  but  that  its  termination  involves  a 
positively  new  and  higher  order  of  things.  Judah 
and  Jerusalem,  i.  e.,  Judah  generally,  Jerusalem 
specially. 

Ver.  2.  All  nations.  In  the  first  instance,  of 
course,  all  those  that  have  offended  against  Israel ; 
yet  these  are  representatives  of  the  heathen  world 
in  general,  whose  position  towards  God's  people  is 
essentially  the  same.  The  valley  of  Jehosha- 
phat.  According  to  2  Chron.  xx.,  Jehoshaphat 
by  the  miraculous  help  of  the  Lord  gained  a  great 
victory  over  a  Gentile  army,  in  a  valley,  which 
subsequently  for  this  reason  took  the  name  of  that 
king.  Does  the  prophet  here  mean  that  valley  ? 
Keil  and  many  others  say,  no.  They  insist  that 
the  valley  of  the  prophet  is  an  imaginary  one,  in 
or  near  Jerusalem,  and  is  called  the  valley  of  Je- 
hoshaphat ="  Jehovah  judges,"  because  of  its 
being  the  place  of  judgment.  The  valley  certainly 
stands  in  close  relation  to  Jerusalem,  for  in  ver.  16 
it  is  said  that  Jehovah,  who  there  judges,  shall  ut- 
ter his  voice  from  Zion  and  Jerusalem.  But  in 
this  case  there  is  no  need  of  applying  a  merely 
geographical  measure.  Jehovah  may  judge  in  a 
valley  far  distant  from  Jerusalem,  and  yet  have 
his  dwelling  in  Israel,  in  Zion,  and  Jerusalem. 
(See  2  Chron.  xx.  15-17,  where  the  Lord,  while 
contending  for  Israel  is,  at  the  same  time,  regarded 
as  being  in  his  sanctuary  in  Jerusalem.)  If  the 
phrase  is  to  be  taken  in  a  symbolic  sense,  it  might 
be  asked,  why  Joel  should  have  fixed  upon  a 
"valley"  as  the  place  of  judgment,  and  should 
have  given  it  the  name  of  a  well-known  king '? 
He  was  undoubtedly  thinking  of  the  great  event 
under  Jehoshaphat.  The  name  of  this  monarch 
was  significant,  and  he  calls  the  place  "valley  of 
Jehoshaphat,"  because  he  was  reminded  of  that 
fortunate  king  who  was  victorious  over  Israel's 
enemies,  and  because  of  the  peculiar  significance 
of  the  name  Jehoshaphat  =  Jehovah  judges.  By 
way  of  anticipation  he  tells  wiiat  they  have  to  ex- 
pect, who  are  gathered  there.  To  the  question, 
does  he  mean  that  well-known  valley  then,  we  an- 
swer, yes,  and  no.  Yes,  because  he  evidently  had 
in  view  the  spot  on  which  Jehoshaphat  won  his 
victory.  No,  because  he  as  evidently  goes  on  to 
describe  a  more  than  common  battle  fought  on  a 
spot  which  could  be  identified  on  no  map.  The 
multitudes  gathered  there  are  too  vast  to  be  as- 


sembled in  any  ordinary  valley.  In  painting  this 
prophetic  vision  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  Joel 
had  in  his  mind  the  historical  narrative  in  2 
Chron.  xx.  Deal  with.  E.  V.  Plead  with,  i.  e. 
to  charge  with  crime,  with  the  design  of  punish- 
ing it.  Taking  the  word  in  its  full  sense  of  argu- 
ing a  cause,  it  implies  that  the  nations  argue  their 
own  cause,  and  attempt  to  vindicate  themselves, 
though,  of  course  they  could  have  no  ground  to 
stand  upon,  since  Jehovah  is  alone  and  always 
in  the  right.  My  people,  my  heritage.  There- 
fore what  the  nations  did  to  Israel  must  be  crimi- 
nal. They  have  scattered.  The  prophet  here 
has  in  mind  what  he  afterwards  more  fully  de- 
scribes. 

Ver.  3.  They  not  only  scattered  God's  people, 
but  treated  them  with  the  greatest  contempt. 
This,  however,  is  only  mentioned  as  pars  pro  toto. 
At  least  in  ver.  19  the  prophet  looks  beyond  what 
was  immediately  before  him,  and  names  oppres- 
sions which  Israel  had  long  before  experienced,  so 
that  it  is  evident  that  he  is  thinking  of  the  heathen 
world  in  general,  and  of  its  hostility  to  God's  peo- 
ple. A  special  reference  to  the  future  Exile  is  not 
to  be  assumed,  as  this  does  not  yet  come  into  the 
prophet's  horizon. 

[Pusey  :  ver.  1.  For,  behold.  The  prophet  by 
the  for  shows  that  he  is  about  to  explain  in  detail, 
what  he  had  before  spoken  of  in  sum.  By  the 
word  behold,  he  stirs  up  our  minds  for  something 
great,  which  he  is  to  set  before  our  eyes,  and  which 
we  should  not  be  prepared  to  expect  or  believe. — 
Ver.  2.  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat.  It  may  be  that 
the  imagery  is  furnished  by  that  great  deliverance 
which  God  gave  to  Jehoshaphat  when  Amnion,  and 
Moab,  and  Edom  came  against  him,  and  Jehosha- 
phat appealed  to  God,  and  God  turned  their  swords 
every  one  against  the  other.  And  they  assembled 
themselves  in  (he  valley  ofBerachah  (blessing)  ;  for 
there  they  blessed  the  Lord.  2  Chron.  xx.  21.  That 
valley,  however,  is  nowhere  called  the  valley  of  Je- 
hoshaphat. It  continued,  says  the  sacred  writer,  to 
be  called  the  eallcy  of  Berachah  unto  this  day.  And 
it  is  so  called  stilt.  Southwest  of  Bethlehem  and 
east  of  Tekoa  are  still  three  or  four  acres  of  ruin 
(Robinson,  Fal. ,  iii.  275),  bearing  the  name  of  Bo- 
reikut  (Seetzen's  Map;  Ritter,  Erdk.,  xv.  635; 
Wolcott,  Exeurs.  to  Hebron,  p.  43).  The  only  val- 
ley called  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat  is  the  valley  of 
Kedron,  encircling  Jerusalem  on  the  east.  The 
valley  was  the  common  burial-place  for  the  inhab- 
itants of  Jerusalem.  (Williams,  II.  C,  ii.  523; 
Thomson,  Land  and  Book,  ii.  481. — Ver.  3.  Cast 
lots.  They  treated  God's  people  as  of  no  account, 
and  delighted  in  showing  their  contempt  towards 
them.  They  chose  no  one  above  another  as  though 
all  alike  were  worthless.  A  girl  they  sold  for  an 
evening's  revelry,  and  a  boy  the}'  exchanged  for  a 
night's  debauch. 

Wiinsche  :  ver.  3.  According  to  the  then  prev- 
alent custom,  the  prisoners  of  war  were  sold  a* 
slaves.  My  people.  We  are  to  understand  by  this, 
not  the  people  as  a  whole,  but  only  the  portion 
taken  captive.  But  the  mistreatment  of  this  part 
of  the  covenant  people,  in  the  view  of  the  O.  T. 
prophets,  was  a  mistreatment  of  the  whole  bodv. 
-P.] 

Vers.  4-8.  And  also  what  have  ye,  etc.  After 
speaking  of  the  crimes  of  the  heathen  in  general, 
against  Israel,  the  prophet  turns  to  the  neighbor- 
ing nations.  Tyre,  Sidon,  and  the  borders  of  Philis- 
tia,  i.  e.,  the  five  small  Philistine  principalities. 
He,   suddenly,  as  it  were,   remembers   those  who 


36 


JOEL. 


had  committed  such  crimes  against  Israel  as  those 
already  mentioned.  The  question,  in  fact,  espe- 
cially concerns  them.  With  the  genns  comes  the 
species  which  is  included  in  it.  In  a  lively  descrip- 
tion, we  find  ourselves  in  the  midst  of  the  nations 
(comp.  ver.  11)  with  whom  the  process  of  pleading 
by  Jehovah  is  carried  on.  For  afterwards  there 
is  no  more  pleading,  but  a  decision.  They  are 
represented  as  claiming  to  be  right ;  but  any  pre- 
sumptive claim  of  theirs  to  do  what  they  had  done 
is  denied,  in  the  first  instance,  by  the  general  ques- 
tion, "  what  have  ye  to  do  with  me  ?  "  a  question 
more  fully  answered  afterwards.  Their  right  to 
inflict  injury  upon  Israel,  or  to  retaliate  for  injuries 
inflicted  upon  themselves,  is  denied.  They  are  the 
persons  on  whom  the  retaliation  shall  come,  and 
that  swiftly.  Vers.  5,  (5  prove  the  righteousness 
of  the  retribution,  by  a  reference  to  the  crimes 
committed,  while  vers.  7,  8  declare  the  certainty 
of  it.  Ver.  5  alludes,  without  doubt,  to  the  pillag- 
ing of  Judah  and  Jerusalem  by  the  Philistines 
and  Arabians  under  Joram.  2  Chron.  xxi.  17. 
They  then  carried  off  the  treasures  of  the  temple 
and  the  palaces  of  the  city,  the  latter  being  desig- 
nated as  '"Mine,"  because  they  belonged  to  those 
who  were  among  God's  people.  The  Philistines 
were  the  immediate  perpetrators  of  the  robbery, 
but  the  Phoenicians,  the  inhabitants  of  Tyre  and 
Sidon,  were  also  involved  in  the  guilt  of  it,  for 
they  bought  the  captives  and  sold  them  to  the 
sons  of  Javan,  or  the  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor.  In 
vers.  7,  8,  there  is  a  promise  that  these  enslaved 
captives  shall  be  brought  home  again,  and  that,  in 
retaliation,  the  same  thing  shall  be  done  to  these 
enemies  of  Israel,  which  they  have  done  to  Israel. 
Jehovah  will  sell  them  into  the  hands  of  the  chil- 
dren of  Judah,  who  will  again  sell  them  to  the 
Sabaeans  in  Arabia  Felix.  This  prophecy  was  ful- 
filled by  Alexander  the  Great  and  his  successors, 
under  whom  many  Jewish  captives  were  liberated 
and  restored  to  their  own  land,  while  various  parts 
of  Philistia  and  Phoenicia  were  brought  under  Jew- 
ish rule. 

[Pusey :  ver.  4.  What  have  ye  to  do  with  me. 
These  words  declare  that  those  nations  had  no  part 
in  God.  He  accounts  them  as  aliens.  But  the 
words  convey  besides,  that  they  would,  unpro- 
voked, have  to  do  with  God,  harassing  his  people 
without  cause. — Ver.  5.  My  silver.  Not  the  sil- 
ver and  gold  of  the  temple,  as  some  have  thought. 
At  least,  up  to  the  Prophet's  time  they  had  not 
done  this.  God  calls  the  silver  and  the  gold,  which 
He  through  his  providence  had  bestowed  on  Judah, 
my  silver  and  my  gold. — Ver.  6.  And  ye  have  sold, 
etc.  This  sin  of  the  Tyrians  was  probably  old  and 
inveterate.  As  they  were  the  great  carriers  of  the 
world's  traffic,  so  they  were  slave-dealers,  and  in 
the  earliest  times,  men-stealers.  The  Greek  ante- 
historic  tradition  exhibits  them  as  trading  and  sell- 
ing women  from  both  Greece  and  Egypt.  As  their 
tiali;  became  more  fixed,  they  themselves  stole  no 
more,  but  like  Christian  nations,  sold  those  whom 
others  stole  or  made  captive.  Even  from  the  times 
of  the  Judges,  Israel  was  exposed  in  part  to  the 
violence  and  fraud  of  Tyre  and  Sidon.  Sisera's 
army  came  from  their  territory,  and  Deborah 
speaks  of  "a  damsel  or  two"  as  the  exported 
prey  of  each  man  in  his  host.  In  Joel,  the  Philis- 
tines and  Tyrians  appear  as  combined  in  the  traf- 
fic. In  Amos,  the  Philistines  arc  the  robbers  of 
men,  the  Phoenicians  are  the  receivers  and  the  sell- 
ers. Probably  such  acts  were  expressly  prohibited 
by  the  "brotherly  covenant,"  or  treaty  between 
Solomon  and  Hiram,  king  of  Tyre.  For  Amos 
nays  that  Tyre  forgot  that  treaty,  when  she  sold 


wholesale  the  captive  Israelites  whom  the  Philis- 
tines had  carried  off.  The  temptation  to  Tyrian 
covetousness  was  aggravated  by  the  ease  with  which 
they  could  possess  themselves  of  the  Jews,  the  fa- 
cility of  transport,  and,  as  it  seems,  their  value. 
The  wholesale  price  at  which  Nicanor  set  the  Jews 
his  expected  prisoners,  and  at  which  he  hoped  to 
sell  180,000,  shows  the  extent  of  the  traffic ;  and 
their  relative  value,  £2  14s.  9d.,  as  the  average 
price  of  each  of  ninety  slaves  in  Judaea,  implies  a 
retail  price  at  the  place  of  sale  above  the  then  or- 
dinary price  of  man. — Ver.  8.  Twill  sell  your 
sons — the  Sabo3a7is.  Tyre  was  taken  by  Alexan- 
der, who  sold  13,000  of  the  inhabitants  into  slav- 
ery. Sidon  was  taken  by  Artaxerxes  Ochus,  and 
it  is  said  above  40,000  perished.  The  Sabasans  are 
probably  mentioned  as  being  the  remotest  nation 
in  the  opposite  direction,  a  nation,  probably,  the 
partner  of  Tyre's  traffic  in  men  as  well  as  in  their 
other  merchandise,  and  who  would  as  soon  trade 
in  Tyrians,  as  with  Tyrians.  They  were,  like  the 
Phoenicians,  a  wealthy  merchant  people,  and,  of 
old,  united  with  them  in  the  trade  of  the  world, 
the  Sabaeans,  sending  forth  their  fleets  across  the 
Indian  Ocean,  as  the  Tyrians  along  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea.  Three  fathers  of  distinct  races  bore 
the  name  of  Sheba,  one  a  descendant  of  Ham,  the 
other  two  descended  from  Shem.  The  Shemite 
Sabaeans  were,  some  descendants  from  Sheba  the 
tenth  son  of  Joktan  ;  the  others  from  Sheba,  son 
of  Abraham  and  Keturah.  The  Sheba  of  the 
prophet  appears  to  have  been  the  wealthy  Sheba 
(descended  from  Joktan)  near  the  Red  Sea.  They 
too  had  distant  colonies  whither  the  Tyrians  could 
be  transported,  as  far  from  Phoenicia  as  the  shores 
of  the  ^Egean  are  from  Palestine. 

Wunche:  Tyre,  lit.,  Hock.  Though  Tyre  wag 
historically  a  younger  city  than  Sidon,  from  its 
rapid  growth  and  great  importance  as  a  commer- 
cial centre,  it  is  usually  mentioned  first  when  the 
two  cities  are  named  together.  There  were  two 
Tyres,  namely,  the  Old,  built  on  the  main  land, 
and  destroyed  by  Nebuchadnezzar  after  a  siege  of 
thirteen  years,  and  the  New,  built  on  a  rocky  island 
about  a  mile  from  the  shore.  Sidon  comes  from 
TI2,  to  fish.  Its  founders  were  probably  fisher- 
men. —  Desirable  things —  Your  temples.  If  by  the 
first  phrase  the  prophet  means  the  rich  adornments 
of  God's  temple,  and  by  the  latter  the  heathen 
temples,  the  crime  here  charged  is  the  double  one 
of  spoliation  and  profanation.  —  Javan.  Credner 
regards  this  as  the  name  of  a  city  in  Arabia  Felix. 
Hitzig  places  it  in  Jemen,  and  thinks  it  to  be  the 
same  as  the  one  mentioned  Ezek.  xxvii.  19.  Schro- 
der takes  the  word  in  the  sense  of  distant,  unknown 
nations.  But  it  is  undoubtedly  the  name  of  the 
Greeks  of  Asia  Minor.  — F.  ] 

Vers.  0,  10.  Proclaim  this.  The  prophet  has 
already  spoken  of  the  gathering  of  the  nations  in 
the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,  where  Jehovah  will 
plead  with  them.  We  have  heard  the  accusation  and 
the  sentence ;  and  now  comes  the  swift  execution 
of  it.  Proclaim  this.  What  ?  If  it  be  Prepare 
(sanctify)  war,  and  this  is  to  be  proclaimed  to  the 
heathen,  those  charged  to  bear  the  message  should 
be  the  heralds  of  the  heathen.  But  the  contents 
of  the  message  show  that  it  is  directed  not  to  the 
heathen  but  to  Israel.  No  one  shall  remain  behind, 
nor  feel  himself  weak,  nor  withdraw  from  the  holy 
contest,  which  is  to  bring  "decision."  It  must  be 
considered,  then,  as  a  summons  to  Israel.  The 
battle  described  is  no  common  one.  It  is  a  battle, 
in  which  Jehovah  Himself  shall  be  present  as  a 
judge  deciding  the  fate  of  the  heathen,  and  help- 


CHAPTER  III. 


37 


Ing  Israel  to  win  a  glorious  victory  over  them. 
The  summoner  is  Jehovah  Himself,  or  the  prophet 
speaking  in  his  name,  who,  in  his  vivid  description 
of  the  contest,  feels  himself  to  be  present  at  it. 
Proclaim  this  must,  then  refer  to  what  was  said  be- 
fore, namely  :  that  Jehovah  will  recompense  the 
heathen  for  their  crimes  against  Israel,  and  that 
Israel  shall  be  fully  avenged.  For  the  counterpart 
of  the  proposed  change  of  the  implements  of  peace 
into  the  instruments  of  war,  see  Is.  ii.  4 ;  Mic. 
iv.  3. 

[Wiinsche  :  Proclaim,  lit.,  sanctify.  The  use  of 
this  word  shows  that  this  great  and  decisive  war 
is  a  holy  and  a  righteous  one.  Credner,  Hitzig, 
Keil,  and  others  regard  this  as  addressed  not  to 
the  Jews,  but  to  the  heathen  nations,  i.  e.,  to  their 
heralds  who  are,  at  the  bidding  of  Jehovah,  to  sum- 
mon these  nations  to  a  war  against  Israel.  But 
on  this  supposition  the  use  of  the  word  "  sanctify  " 
is  inexplicable.  —  F.] 

Vers.  11-16.  Hasten  and  come.  Now  the  na- 
tions are  summoned  to  collect  speedily,  as  if  they 
were  about  to  accomplish  something  against  Is- 
rael, while  really  they  are  rushing  to  their  own 
destruction.  Round  about.  The  reference  is  not 
to  the  immediate  neighbors  of  Israel,  but  the  ex- 
pression is  used  because  God's  people  is  regarded 
as  holding  a  central  position  among  the  nations. 
The  prophet,  however,  cannot  think  of  the  assem- 
blage of  the  nations  without  offering  a  prayer  to 
Jehovah  that  He  would  cause  his  mighty  ones  to 
come  down,  where  the  gathering  occurs,  in  the 
valley  of  Jehoshaphat.  Thy  mighty  ones.  Ac- 
cording to  Keil  they  are  the  angels  as  heavenly 
hosts.  But  if  in  ver.  9  they  are  men  (Keil  refers 
that  version  to  the  heathen),  they  must  also  be  men 
here.  The  idea  of  the  angels  coming  from  heaven 
to  help  is  not  Joel's.  It  is  Israel  who  fights,  un- 
der the  command  of  Jehovah  (comp.  Judges  v.  13). 
Thy  affords  no  proof  against  this  exposition,  since 
Israel  is  God's  people,  and  Israel's  mighty  ones 
are  God's. 

Ver.  12.  Here  Jehovah  himself  speaks,  and  the 
whole  verses  may,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  a  kind 
of  answer  to  the  prophet's  prayer.  Jehovah  sum- 
mons the  nations  to  awake  and  to  come  up  (n^27 
here  means  to  ascend)  to  the  valley  of  Jehosha- 
phat. For  though  the  gathering  place  is  a  val- 
ley, and  Israel's  mighty  ones  go  down  into  it 
from  Zion,  yet  the  heathen  come  up  to  the  vallev 
of  Jehoshaphat,  because,  being  near  to  Jerusalem, 
it  is  on  a  higher  elevation  than  the  territories 
(e.  g.,  Philistia)  of  the  neighboring  nations.  The 
reason  why  they  are  to  come  up  to  this  vallev  is 
found  in  the  meaning  of  the  name  Jehoshaphat  = 
"  Jehovah  sits  there  to  judge."  He  does  not  en- 
gage directly  in  the  contest ;  He  does  not  lead  the 
army,  but  He  sits  on  a  throne  to  judge,  —  to  pro- 
nounce the  sentence,  and  to  execute  it  by  means 
of  his  mighty  ones.  At  the  same  time  he' renders 
essential  aid  by  those  terrible  phenomena  of  nature 
6pokeu  of  (vers.  15,  16),  which  mark  the  contest 
as  "  the  day  of  the  Lord,"  the  result  of  which  is 
the  utter  destruction  of  these  enemies.  How  Jeho- 
vah will  execute  the  sentence  pronounced  by  Him 
ns  Judge,  is  explained  in  ver.  13,  for  the  exhorta- 
tion here  addressed  to  the  "  mighty  ones,"  while 
the  two  armies  front  each  other  in  battle  array,  is 
given  by  Jehovah.  This  is  evident  from  the  fact 
that  the  battle  is  to  be  the  execution  of  a  deserved 
sentence.  Hence  the  attack  and  the  fight  are  nr  ■ 
more  spoken  of,  but  the  result  simply,  rcpresente 
by  the  figure   of  cutting  down   ripe  corn.     Of  a , 


threshing  and  winnowing  of  the  corn  thus  cut 
down,  as  Keil  suggests,  there  is  no  hint ;  for  with 
these  enemies  of  Jehovah  there  could  be  no  separ- 
ating the  wheat  and  the  chaff.  The  only  point  in 
the  figure  on  which  attention  is  fixed,  is  the  "cut- 
ting down  "  what  had  been  before  standing.  Then 
comes  a  new  and  stronger  simile  to  represent  the 
destruction  of  these  enemies.  They  shall  not  only 
be  "cut  off,"  but  "crushed,"  or  trodden  like 
grapes  in  the  wine-press.  The  overflowing  "  full- 
ness of  the  vats  "  is  significant  (Keil  denies  it). 
It  represents  the  general  blood-shedding  which 
shall  be  proportioned  to  the  "greatness  of  their 
wickedness."  The  execution  itself  is  not  formally 
described,  but  it  is  plainly  enough  indicated  in  ver. 
14.  Multitudes,  or  as  some  render  it  "  tumult." 
The  "mighty  ones"  are  now  to  engage  in  their 
bloody  work,  amid  the  uproar  of  battle.  The 
noise  expressed  or  implied  is  not,  as  Keil  supposes, 
that  of  nations  rushing  together,  for  they  are  al- 
ready assembled,  and  now,  the  moment  is  one  of 
judgment,  or  "  decision."  The  valley  is  the  val- 
ley of  Jehoshaphat,  the  "  valley  of  decision,"  the 
phrase  being  immediately  followed  by  the  words 
"  for  the  day  of  the  Lord  is  come."  This  shows 
that  what  had  been  commanded  (ver.  13)  is  now 
being  accomplished,  and  that  the  contest  involve 
the  judgment  and  destruction  of  these  enemies 
This  catastrophe  is  the  "  day  of  the  Lord,"  whicl 
is  attended  by  those  awful  phenomena  described 
(vers.  15,  16),  by  which  Jehovah  displays  his  om 
nipotence,  and  really  determines  the  issue  of  the 
battle-  The  "  darkness,"  before  noticed  as  a  pres- 
age of  "  the  day,"  now  introduces  it.  "  Thun- 
der "=  an  immediate  display  of  God's  power. 
"  Giving  forth  his  voice,"  lit.,  "  roaring,"  i.  e.,  of 
the  lion  in  pursuit  of  prey,  denotes  God's  design 
to  punish  and  destroy.  Of  course  Joel  has  in  his 
mind  not  an  ordinary  rhunder-storm,  but  a  far  more 
terrible  one.  Israel  had  been  previously  threat- 
ened with  a  day  of  punishment  marked  by  similar 
presages,  in  connection  with  the  visitation  of  lo- 
custs, but  it  had  passed  away.  Now,  however, 
the  storm  overtakes  and  destroys  the  heathen, 
while  Israel  is  not  only  protected  by  Jehovah  from 
the  judgments  that  overwhelm  the  enemies  of  God, 
but  is  introduced  into  new  and  far  higher  privi- 
leges than  ever  before  were  possessed. 

[Wiinsche:  Ver.  12.  Sit  to  judge.  This  pos- 
ture of  the  judge  was  common  to  the  Hebrews, 
Greeks,  and  Romans.  In  Latin,  sedere  is  often 
used  in  the  sense  of  judicare  (Liv.  iii.  46)  ;  so  in 
Greek  naOi£eiv.  The  decision  of  a  judge  made  by 
him  standing,  was  generally  deemed  to  have  no 
legal  force.  AH  nations.  The  "  all  "  is  limited  by 
"roundabout."  Hengstenberg,  Keil,  and  others 
understand  by  it  all  the  nations  who  have  become 
in  any  way  related  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  i.  e., 
all  the  nations  of  the  earth,  as  before  the  final 
judgment,  the  Gospel  of  the  kingdom  will  be 
preached  throughout  the  whole  world.  Credner 
supposes  that  the  meaning  of  the  double  image 
used  in  ver.  13  is,  that  as  son-s  of  gladness,  dan- 
cing,  and  other  signs  of  joy  mark  the  harvest  and 
vintage,  so  the  Jews  will  find  the  highest  enjoy- 
ment in  the  day  of  judgment  of  their  enemies. 
But  there  is  no  ground  for  supposing  that  tha 
covenant  people  will  have  any  such  feelings. 

Pusey :  Ver.  13.  In  tself,  the  harvest  as  well 
as  the  vintage,  might  describe  the  end  of  this  world 
as  to  both  the  good  and  the  had,  in  that  the  wheat 
is  severed  from  the  chaff  and  the  tares,  and  the 
treading  of  the  wine-press  separates  the  win? 
which  is  stored  up  from  the  hnsks  which  arc  cas 


38 


JOEL. 


away.  Yet  nothing  is  said  here  of  storing:  up 
aught,  either  the  wheat  or  the  wine,  but  only  of 
the  ripeness  of  the  harvest,  and  that  the  vats  over- 
flow because  their  wickedness  is  great.  The  harvest 
is  sometimes,  though  more  rarely,  used  for  destruc- 
tion ;  the  treading  of  the  wine-press  is  always  used 
a9  an  image  of  God's  anger ;  the  vintage,  of  de- 
struction. It  seems  probable  then,  that  the  ripe- 
ness of  the  harvest  and  the  fullness  of  the  vats  are 
alike  used  of  the  ripeness  for  destruction.  —  Ver. 
14.  The  prophet  continues,  as  in  amazement  at 
the  great  throng  assembling  upon  one  another, 
multitudes,  multitudes,  as  though,  whichever  way  he 
looked,  there  were  yet  more  of  these  tumultuous 
masses.  It  was  one  living,  surging,  boiling  sea; 
throngs  upon  throngs,  mere  throngs.  The  word 
rendered  multitudes  suggests,  besides,  the  thought 
of  the  hum  and  din  of  these  masses,  thronging, 
onward  blindly,  to  their  own  destruction.  —  F.] 

Vers.  17-21.  And  ye  shall  know.  Jehovah, 
by  his  judgment  of  Israel's  enemies,  proves  Him- 
self to  be  Israel's  God ;  and  from  Ziou,  his  dwell- 
ing place,  all  strangers  and  unclean  ones  are  ban- 
ished. This  is  the  immediate  gain  to  Israel,  but 
other  benefits  are  consequent  upon  it  (comp.  Rev. 
xxi.  27).  A  time  of  extraordinary  prosperity  fol- 
lows. 

Ver.  18.  Wine  and  milk  flow  in  richest  abund- 
ance. The  mountains  and  the  hills,  i.  e.,  the  nat- 
urally sterile  districts,  become  very  fruitful,  and  as 
this  result  depends  on  the  supply  of  water,  the 
brooks  shall  not  become  dry.  Vale  of  Shittim,  or 
Valley  of  Acacias,  now  quite  dry,  —  for  in  such  a 
soil  the  acacia  grows,  —  shall  be  watered  by  a 
fountain  flowing  from  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and 
shall  become  fruitful.  This  description,  of  course, 
is  not  to  be  taken  in  its  merely  literal  sense.  As 
the  blessedness  originates  with  Jehovah,  the  fertil- 
izing stream  is  represented  as  coming  from  the 
Temple,  the  dwelling-place  of  God.  What  a  con- 
trast between  the  state  of  things  here  depicted, 
and  the  condition  of  the  land  after  its  devastation 
by  the  locusts ! 

Ver.  19.  To  render  Israel's  blessed  condition 
the  more  conspicuous,  the  picture  of  the  desolated 
heathendom  is  placed  beside  it.  Egypt  and  Edom 
are  specially  mentioned  on  account  of  their  vio- 
lence against  Judah's  sons,  namely,  shedding 
their  blood.  It  is  uncertain,  what  precise  instances 
of  this  are  referred  to.  Egypt's  sins  were  prob- 
ably those  of  the  olden  time  (Ex.  1.  16).  For  that 
of  Edom,  see  Amos  i.  11 ;  Ob.  10.  They,  however, 
like  the  Phoenicians  and  Philistines  in  another 
place,  are  here  taken  as  representatives  of  the  en- 
emies of  Israel.  (Comp.  in  ref.  to  Edom  Is.  xxxiv. 
63;  Jer.  xlix.  7  ;  Ezek.  iii.  5.) 

Ver.  20.  Wholly  different  shall  be  the  condition 
of  Israel.  Judah  and  Jerusalem  shall  dwell  for- 
ever, t.  e.,  they  shall  be  inhabited. 

Ver.  21.  While  Israel  is  thus  blessed,  it  will  be 
proved  that  the  wrong  committed  against  him  has 
been  fully  avenged,  or  as  some  take  the  word,  an- 
nulled, i.  e.,  by  having  been  punished  ;  and  the  all- 
embracing  assurance  is  repeated,  Jehovah,  shall 
dwell  in  Zion. 

[Pusey  :  Ver.  18.  A  fountain  shall  come  forth  out 
of  the  house  of  the  Lord.  The  existence  of  a  large 
supply  of  water  under  the  Temple  is  beyond  all 
question.  While  the  Temple  was  still  standing, 
mention  is  made  of  an  ever-flowing  fountain  under 
it,  as  well  as  pools  and  cisterns  for  preserving 
raia-water.  One  well  acquainted  with  the  local- 
'•ties  says,  "  The.  pavements  had  slopes  for  t  lie  sake 
*f  a  flush  of  water  in  order  to  cleanse  away  the 


blood  from  the  victims.  For  on  festival  occa- 
sions many  thousands  of  animals  were  slain.  Bu 
of  water  there  was  an  unfailing  supply,  a  copiom 
and  natural  fountain  within  gushing  over ;  and 
there  being  moreover  wonderful  underground  re- 
ceptacles, in  the  substructure  of  the  temple,  and 
each  of  these  having  numerous  pipes,  the  several 
streams  inter-communicating."  The  same  writer 
relates  that,  more  than  half  a  mile  from  the  city, 
he  was  told  to  stoop  down,  and  heard  the  sound 
of  gushing  waters  underground.  The  natural 
fountain,  then,  beneath  the  Temple,  was  doubtless 
augmented  by  waters  brought  from  a  distance,  as 
required  by  the  "  diverse  washings  "  of  the  priests, 
and  to  carry  off  the  blood  of  the  victims.  Whence- 
soever  this  water  was  supplied,  it  furnished  Jeru- 
salem with  an  abundant  supply  of  water.  The 
superfluous  water  was  carried  off  underground  to 
what  is  now  "  the  fountain  of  the  Virgin,"  and 
thence  again  to  the  "  pool  of  Siloam."  Thence  it 
carried  fertility  to  the  gardens  of  Siloam.  The 
blood  of  the  victims  flowed  into  the  same  brook, 
Kedron,  and  was  a  known  source  of  fertility.  That 
little  oasis  of  verdure  was  a  fit  emblem  of  the  Jew- 
ish people,  itself  bedewed  by  the  stream  which  is- 
sued from  the  temple  of  God.  But  it  made  no 
sensible  impression  out  of  or  beyond  itself.  Here- 
after the  stream,  whose  streamlets  "  made  glad  the 
city  of  God,"  should  make  the  wildest,  driest  spots 
of  our  humanity  "  like  the  garden  of  the  Lord." 
Valley  of  Shittim,  or  acacia-trees,  is  a  dry  valley, 
for  in  such  the  eastern  acacia  or  sandal  wood 
grows.  This  wood  is  very  strong  and  of  incredi- 
ble lightness  and  beauty.  Of  it  the  ark  of  God  was 
made.  — Ver.  1 9.  Egypt  a  desolation.  Brief  as  Joel's 
words  are,  they  express  an  abiding  condition  of 
Egypt.  They  are  expanded  by  Ezekiel,  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  and  Zechariah.  But  the  three  words  of 
Joel  are  more  comprehensive  than  any  prophecy, 
except  those  of  Ezekiel.  They  foretell  that  abid- 
ing condition,  not  only  by  the  force  of  the  words, 
but  by  the  contrast  with  an  abiding  condition  of 
bliss.  The  words  say,  not  only  that  it  shall  "  be 
desolated  "  as  by  a  passing  scourge,  but  it  "  shall 
pass  over  into  that  state ; "  it  shall  become  what  it 
had  not  been,  and  this,  in  contrast  with  the  abid- 
ing condition  of  God's  people.  Yet  when  Joel 
threatened  Egypt,  there  were  no  human  symptoms 
of  decay ;  the  instruments  of  its  successive  over- 
throws were  as  yet  wild  hordes,  or  had  not  the 
beginnings  of  being.  Egypt  would  not  become 
barren  except  by  miracle.  Even  now  it  recovers 
whenever  water  is  applied.  Nothing  could  deso- 
late Egypt  except  man's  abiding  negligence  or  op 
pression.  No  passing  storm  could  annihilate  a 
fertility  which  poured  in  upon  it  in  ever-renewing 
richness.  Egypt  is  alike  prolific  in  its  people,  and 
in  the  productions  of  the  earth.  Yet  with  these 
powers  implanted  in  nature  unimpaired,  the  pop- 
ulation is  diminished,  the  land  half  desert.  Per- 
sians, Macedonians,  Romans,  Greeks,  Arabs,  and 
Turks,  have  tried  their  hands  on  Egypt.  Strange 
that  selfishness  or  powerlessness  for  good  should 
have  rested  upon  all ;  strange  that  no  one  should 
have  developed  its  inherent  powers.  One  long 
prosperity,  and  one  long  adversity.  One  scarcely 
broken  day,  and  one  troubled  night.  And  that 
doom  foretold  in  the  mid-day  of  its  prosperity  by 
these  three  words,  Egypt  shall  be  a  desolation  — 
Edom  a  desolate  wilderness.  Its  ancient  capital, 
and  its  rock-dwellings  long  unknown,  have  been 
within  the  last  forty  years,  again  revealed  to  us. 
The  land  is  almost  the  more  hopelessly  desolate, 
because  it  was  once  artificially  cultivated.     Edom 


CHAPTER  III. 


;J9 


was  the  centre  of  the  intercourse  of  nations.  The 
bill-sides,  and  mountains,  once  covered  with  earth 
and  clothed  with  vineyards,  are  now  bare  rocks. 
Yet  the  traces  of  former  fertility  are  innumer- 
able: every  spot  capable  of  sustaining  vegetabl  3 
Life  was  carefully  watered  and  cultivated.  The 
Ancient  inhabitants  seem  to  have  left  no  acces- 
sible place  untouched.  They  have  exhibited  equal 
art  and  industry  in  eliciting  from  the  grand 
walls  of  their  marvelous  capital,  whatever  the 
combination  of  climate,  irrigation,  and  botanical 
skill  could  foster  in  the  scanty  soil  afforded  them. 
The  desolation  began  soon  after  the  captivity  of 
Judah,  and  Edom's  malicious  joy  in  it.  In  Joel's 
time,  not  the  slightest  shadow  was  cast  on  her  fu- 
ture. No  human  eye  could  tell  that  she  would  he 
finally  desolate.  But  God  said  by  Joel,  "  Edom 
shall  be  a  desolate  wilderness,"  and  so  it  is !  — 
Ver.  21.  I  will  cleanse  her  blood.  The  word  ren- 
dered cleansed,  is  not  used  for  natural  cleansing, 
nor  is  the  image  taken  from  the  cleansing  of  the 
body.  The  word  signifies  only  to  pronounce  in- 
nocent, or  to  free  from  guilt.  Nor  is  blood  used  of 
sinfulness  generally,  but  only  of  the  actual  guilt 
of  shedding  blood.  The  whole  then  cannot  be  an 
image  taken  from  the  cleansing  of  physical  defile- 
ment, like  the  words  of  Ezek.  xvi.  9,  "  then  washed 
I  thee  with  water,"  etc.  Nor,  again,  can  it  mean 
the  forgiveness  of  sins  generally,  but  only  the  pro- 
nouncing innocent  the  blood  which  had  been  shed. 
This  the  only  meaning  of  the  words,  falls  in  with 
the  mention  of  innocent  blood,  for  shedding  which, 
Egypt  and  Edom  had  been  condemned.  In  pun- 
ishing the  shedding  of  it,  God  declared  the  blood 
innocent,  whose  shedding  He  punished.  —  F.] 


THKOLCaiCAL. 

1.  Three  topics  are  discussed  in  this  chapter : 
the  enmity  of  the  "  nations  "  against  Israel ;  the 
punishment  of  the  nations ;  and  the  new  happi- 
ness of  Israel. 

(1.)  The  enmity  of  the  nations  against  Israel. 
How  does  the  prophet  regard  this  1  Is  the  hos- 
tility only  accidental,  exhibiting  itself  simply  in 
some  particular  acts  ?  Or  has  it  a  deeper  ground, 
namely,  in  the  antagonism  of  the  nations  as 
heathen  against  Israel  as  God's  people,  or  the  an- 
tagonism between  idolatry  and  the  worship  of  the 
true  God  ?  The  mere  words  of  the  prophet  would 
not  lead  us  to  suppose  that  he  regarded  it  in  the 
latter  light.  He  speaks  only  of  acts  of  pillage, 
carrying  away  captives,  shedding  of  blood.  Nor 
must  we  interpret  ver.  5  as  if  *he  acts  described 
were  directed  against  the  Temple  as  such  ;  nor 
are  they  the  necessary  and  exclusive  offspring  of 
heathenism.  But  we  may  and  must  say  that  these 
acts  of  injury  appeared  to  be  the  outgrowth  of  the 
religious  antagonism  between  the  Gentiles  and  Is- 
rael. The  people  of  Israel  were  God's  people,  and 
enmity  against  the  former  was  in  fact  enmity 
against  God's  people,  and  God  himself.  That 
the  prophet  so  regards  it,  vers.  4,  5  plainly  show. 
This  hostility  of  the  Gentiles  or  nations,  though 
in  one  sense  accidental,  really  reflects  an  inward 
and  profound  hatred.  Hence  the  general  expres- 
sion, "all  ye  heathen,  or  Gentile,"  alohough,  in 
point  of  fact,  Israel  had  been  injured  only  by 
some  of  them.  Thus  Israel  stands  on  one  side, 
and  all  the  heathen  or  Gentiles  on  the  other,  in 
the  attitude  of  antagonists.  What  one  of  the  lat- 
ter does,  they  may  be  all  expected  to  do,  and  so 
way  be  held  responsible  for  it,  inasmuch  as  they 


constitute  one  whole.  Therefore,  if  Israel  is  to 
be  helped,  the  judgment  must  fall  on  the  whole 
heathen  world.  Finally,  the  prophet  nowhere  in- 
timates that  the  Gentiles  should  be  employed  a« 
God's  instruments  in  punishing  Israel  for  his  guilt. 
The  Gentiles  alone  appear  as  the  guilty  ones. 

(2.)  The  punishment  of  the  nations  was  a  cer 
tain  and  necessary  result  of  Israel's  position  as 
God's  people.  They  had  scattered  them ;  they 
had  parted  their  land  ;  they  had  taken  their  silver 
and  gold  ;  in  a  word,  they  had  thus  taken  God's 
property,  and  He  could  not  allow  this  to  go  un- 
punished. He  must  stand  up  for  his  people  and 
destroy  their  enemies.  Though  Israel  is  the  agent 
in  inflicting,  yet  the  punishment  comes  really  from 
the  divine  hand.  Jehovah  assembles  the  nations, 
and,  in  the  contest  between  them  and  his  people, 
gives,  by  his  immediate  help,  the  victory  to  the  lat- 
ter. This  punishment  involves  the  destruction  of 
these  enemies.  The  menaces  relating  to  this  point 
may  seem  unduly  severe  ;  but  it  is  to  be  observed 
that  the  guilt  of  these  nations  is  very  aggravated, 
going  far  beyond  the  ordinary  measure  of  enmity 
and  crime,  and  therefore,  according  to  the  jus  tal- 
ionis,  the  retribution  should  be  proportionate. 
Credner's  idea  that  Joel  here  abandons  himself  to 
the  feelings  of  unbridled  revenge,  is  wholly  ground- 
less. Meier  justly  remarks  against  this  notion, 
that  no  prophet  ever  describes  those  bloody  con- 
flicts as  simply  growing  out  of  human  revenge  ; 
they  ever  regard  them  as  signs  of  that  Higher 
Power  which  strikes  with  destruction  everything 
ungodly.  And  while  the  later  prophets  do  not 
speak  of  bloody  phenomena  such  as  are  here  de- 
scribed, they  yet  plainly  intimate,  that  before  the 
consummation  of  the  Messianic  age,  a  catastrophe 
involving  such  scenes  must  come,  as  a  transition 
epoch,  in  which  everything  unholy,  as  well  in  Is- 
rael as  in  the  heathen  world,  will  be  destroyed. 
The  grand  object  on  which  all  depends,  and  which 
faith  accepts  as  certain,  is  the  complete  subju- 
gation of  God's  enemies,  and  the  complete  tri- 
umph of  his  people.  The  pencil  that  paints  this 
picture  is,  indeed,  dipped  in  strong  colors,  corre- 
sponding to  the  energy  of  the  divine  powers  which 
shall  realize  it.  The  idea  set  forth  is  the  essential 
thing ;  the  expression  of  it  is,  of  course,  modified 
by  the  prophet's  historical  relations,  and  the  char 
acter  of  the  times  in  which  he  lived. 

(3.)  Israel's  new  felicity.  Amid  the  extraordi- 
nary manifestations  of  divine  wrath  connected  with 
the  destruction  of  the  wicked,  Israel  is  protected 
and  realizes  anew  that  Jehovah  is  his  God.  His 
land  shall  no  more  be  seized  by  a  stranger,  and  its 
remarkable  fertility  will  be  a  proof  that  Jehovah 
is  dwelling  in  the  midst  of  it.  The  latter  is  the 
main  thing  in  the  promise,  the  productiveness  of 
the  land  being  simply  an  evidence  of  it.  Of  this 
the  fountain  issuing  forth  from  the  house  of  the 
Lord  is  a  symbol  and  a  pledge.  Here  the  promise 
goes  beyond  what  is  merely  physically  possible,  as 
do  also  some  features  of  the  judgment  of  the 
heathen  ;  from  which  it  is  plain  that  the  prophet's 
mind  was  fixed,  not  so  much  on  the  literal  fulfill- 
ment of  the  prediction,  as  upon  the  general  truth, 
that  Jehovah  will,  in  a  manner  eminent  and  un- 
equivocal, own  Israel  as  his  people,  by  bestowing 
on  him  the  richest  blessings. 

2.  If  now  we  inquire  into  the  fulfillment  of  this 
prophecy,  objectively  considered,  we  shall  quickly 
discover,  that  things  took  at  first  quite  a  different 
shape  from  that  which  Joel  seems  to  have  sup- 
posed they  would.  He  sees  in  the  heathen  oulv 
the  enemies  of  God's  people  who  are  to  be  pun 


40 


JOEL. 


ishec.  and  he  announces  their  certain  punishment 
on  account  of  their  many  acts  of  violence  against 
Israel.  The  later  prophets,  on  the  other  hand, 
charge  God's  own  people  with  their  sins,  and  pre- 
dict judgments,  which  God  will  employ  the  heathen 
as  his  instruments  to  indict,  and  which,  we  know, 
in  later  time?  they  did.  But  there  is  no  evidence, 
i.  (■.,  tirom  his  prophecy,  that  .loci  was  acquainted 
with  this  fact  of  the  future.  It  is  wholly  unwar- 
rantable to  interpret  ins  words  (ver.  1),  as  if  he 
had  foreseen  and  foretold  what  later  prophets  an- 
nounced, namely,  the  Exile,  and  the  dispersion  by 
the  Romans,  without  giving  the  reason  for  either 
of  these  events,  lie  does  not  think  it  possible  — 
so  far  as  his  prophecy  shows —  that  a  divine  judg- 
ment should  he  inflicted  upon  Israel.  Both  the 
internal  (i.e.,  the  guiltiness  of  Israel  and  Judah) 
and  the  external  antecedent  conditions  of  such  a 
judgment  are  wanting.  He  knows  nothing  of 
those  secular  powers  which  brought  on  the  exile, 
or  at  least,  he  does  not  know  them  as  powers  with 
whom  Israel  is  to  come  into  conflict.  It  is  a  false 
view  of  the  nature  of  prophecy  to  suppose  that 
events  of  the  most  distant  future  were  revealed  with 
equal  clearness  to  the  prophets  whose  experience, 
in  a  sort  of  intermediate  way.  corresponded  with,  or 
contradicted  that  future.  According:  to  the  later 
prophets  the  glorious  state  of  Israel  is  reached, 
after  his  having  passed  through  an  intermediate 
condition  of  humiliation.  Joel  knows  nothing  of 
such  an  intermediate  condition.  He  represents 
the  felicity  of  Israel  as  resulting  not  simply  from 
the  truthfulness  of  God.  who  will  not  utterly  aban- 
don even  his  unfaithful  people,  while  He  punishes 
them,  but  as  a  thing  which  they  might  at  any 
time  secure  by  penitential  confession  of  sins,  and 
calling  upon  the  Lord.  But  there  is  an  essential 
harmony  between  Joel  and  the  later  prophets. 
How  then  were  their  predictions  fulfilled  1  The 
menaces  against  the  heathen  nations  mentioned 
have  been  remarkably  accomplished  by  actual  his- 
torical events,  particularly  by  Alexander  the  Great 
and  his  successors.  But  we  must  look  for  a  larger 
and  fuller  accomplishment  of  the  prophecies  of  Joel. 
It  is  evident  that  he  had  in  his  mind  a  grand  con- 
summation, since  he  connects  it  with  the  general 
outpouring  of  the  Spirit  and  the  announcement 
of  the  day  of  the  Lord.  He  sees  the  heathen  world 
utterly  overwhelmed,  while  Israel  enters  into  and 
holds  the  position  of  God's  people.  The  period 
of  conflict  is  passed,  and  that  of  victory  and  peace 
has  come. 

Now  as  regards  the  fulfillment  of  these  proph- 
ecies, we  might  repeat  the  remarks  already  made 
respecting  the  later  ones  of  Hosea.  For  Israel  as 
a  nation  that  glorious  time  had  not  yet  come;  nor 
was  there  any  ground  for  the  immediate  expecta- 
tion of  it.  The  tenor  of  the  prophecy  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  it  applied  exclusively  to  Israel, 
because  in  Joel's  time,  Israel  alone  was  God's  peo- 

Ele.  But  this  view,  which  makes  God's  people  and 
srael  as  a  nation  identical,  though  sanctioned  in 
a  certain  sense  by  the  Old  Covenant,  has  been 
clearly  set  aside  by  the  New  Covenant.  While 
then  the  Jewish  nation,  as  such,  has  no  ground  for 
expecting,  as  the  Chiliasts  maintain,  this  promised 
telieity,  it  is  nevertheless  certain  that  the  promise 
is  valid  for  the  people  of  God  as  typified  by  Israel. 
Its  fulfillment  is  to  he  looked  for  in  a  far  different 
and  more  glorious  way  than  the  prophet,  from  his 
Hand-point,  anticipated.  [Whether  the  so-called 
Chiliastic  theory  ot  the  future  of  the  Jews  be  true 
ur  not,  there  is  no  necessary  antagonism  between 
it  and  the  admission,  tinder  the  New  Covenant,  of 


the  Gentiles  to  the  spiritual  privileges  of  God' 
people.  The  Jews  still  exist  as  a  distinct  people 
And  Paul  certainly  seems  to  intimate  (Rom.  xi 
25)  that  there  is  yet  a  glorious  future  for  Israel 
which  shall  be  realized  when  "  the  fullness  of  tin 
Gentiles  be  come  in."  —  F.]  The  new  Israel  livci 
in  the  hope  of  a  general  outpouring  of  the  Spirit 
which  was  begun  at  Pentecost,  and  has  been  con 
tinued  ever  since, — of  a  final,  complete  deliver 
ance,  and  a  glorious  victory  over  all  its  enemies  , 
in  a  word,  of  a  felicity  and  salvation  which  shall 
be  a  proof  of  God's  immediate  presence  in  the 
midst  of  it.  Whether  Joel  foresaw  all  this,  i.  e., 
understood  the  full  meaning  of  his  own  prediction, 
may  be  doubted ;  but,  in  the  sense  already  ex- 
plained, we  can  appropriate  it  to  ourselves,  as  Keil 
remarks :  "  The  people  and  heritage  of  the  Lord 
is  not  only  the  Old  Testament  Israel  as  such,  but 
the  Church  of  God,  embracing  those  who  lived 
under  the  New  as  well  as  the  Old  Covenant.  On  it 
his  Spirit  is  poured  out.  Jehovah's  judgment  of 
the  nations  for  injuries  done  to  his  people  is  not 
simply  the  judgment  of  such  of  them,  e.  g.,  tha 
Romans  and  others,  that  have  maltreated  the  Jews, 
but  the  final,  general  judgment  of  all  nations,  of 
all  the  enemies  of  the  Church  of  God.  It  is  this 
fundamental  truth,  this  "lotions  hope  made  sure 
by  almost  the  oldest  of  the  prophets,  which  thu 
people  of  God,  from  the  beginning,  have  lifted  up 
as  a  standard.  And  hence  we  see  in  all  the  vic- 
tories which  God  has  granted  to  his  people,  and  in 
all  the  judgments  inflicted  upon  the  heathen  neigh- 
bors and  enemies  of  Israel,  a  fulfillment  of  this 
promise,  which  again  finds,  as  by  a  thousandfold 
refraction,  a  still  more  particular  fulfillment  in  all 
the  special  deliverances  of  his  children,  and  in  all 
their  experiences  of  his  protection.  So  Luther  is 
not  wrong  in  regarding  the  rich  blessings  promised 
to  Judah  as  identical  with  those  revealed  in  the 
Gospel,  and  through  it  bestowed  upon  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  As  God's  heritage,  Zion  experienced 
from  the  first,  aud  continues  to  experience,  the 
blessed  presence  and  the  grace  of  God.  Still,  the 
final,  and  complete  fulfillment  will  only  come  with 
the  consummation  of  the  kingdom  of  the  Parou 
sia,  or  Second  Advent  of  the  Lord. 


HOMILETICAL. 

Ver.  1.  When  1  shall  bring  again.  God  hath 
set  bounds  to  everything,  especially  to  the  suffer- 
ings of  his  people.  He  determines  their  beginning, 
and  how  long  they  shall  endure.  Rejoice,  ye  faith- 
ful, the  Lord  shall  bring  again  your  captivity.  He 
will  deliver  you  from  all  evil,  and  help  you  to  reach 
his  heavenly  kingdom. 

[Henry  :  Though  the  bondage  of  God's  people 
may  he  grievous  and  very  long,  yet  it  shall  not  be 
everlasting.  There  is  a  day,  there  is  a  time,  fixed 
for  the  bringing  again  of  the  captivity  of  God's  chil- 
dren, for  the  redeeming  them  from  the  power  of  the 
grave.  —  F.  j 

Ver.  2.  I  will  gather  all  nations.  Though  wicked 
men  say  that  the  Lord  does  not  see  them,  they  shall 
learn  by  experience  that  He  does,  in  the  time  when 
He  shall  judge  them.  Ye  proud  Gentiles,  who 
oease  not  to  afflict  the  little  flock  of  the  faithful, 
know  that  a  day  of  judgment  is  coming,  when  th« 
Lord  will  avenge  the  blood  of  his  servants.  —  Whoir 
they  have  scattered.  Those  who  are  unjustly  exiled 
should  leave  vengeance  in  the  hands  of  God  th« 
righteous  judge.  Mark  that  all  divine  punishment, 
and  even  the  final  judgment  of  the  wicked  is  tot 


CHAPTER  III. 


41 


(he  sake  of  the  godly.  Behold  how  God  takes  care 
of  his  people !  Therefore,  be  of  good  courage  ! 
Dost  thou  belong  to  God's  people  ?  Then  He  will 
take  care  of  thee,  though  He  may  seem  to  delay 
doiug  so.  God's  honor  will  not  permit  his  people 
to  perish,  and  their  enemies  to  triumph,  for  their 
enemies  are  his  enemies. 

[Pust'T  :  Will  plead  with  them.  God  maketh 
Himself  in  such  wise  a  party,  as  not  to  condemn 
those  unconvicted,  yet  the  pleading  has  a  separate 
awfulnessof  its  own.  God  impleads,  so  as  to  allow 
Himself  to  be  impleaded  and  answered  ;  but  there 
is  no  answer.  He  will  set  forth  what  He  had  done, 
and  how  we  have  requited  Him.  And  we  are  with- 
out excuse.  Our  memories  witness  against  us ; 
our  knowledge  acknowledges  his  justice  ;  our  con- 
science convicts  us ;  all  unite  in  pronouncing  our- 
selves ungrateful,  and  God  holy  and  just.  For  a 
sinner  to  see  himself  is  to  condemn  himself,  and  in 
the  day  of  judgment  God  will  bring  before  each 
sinner  his  whole  self.  —  F.] 

Vers.  3-5.  They  have  cast  lots.  In  a  time  of  war 
terrible  crimes  are  very  common,  but  in  due  season 
God  will  punish  them.  —  What  have  ye  to  do  with 
me.  The  true  Church  is  the  heavenly  Father's 
daughter,  and  Christ's  beloved  spouse.  Therefore 
he  who  persecutes  it,  is  persecuting  God  and  Christ. 
How  great  the  foolishness  of  sinners  who  want  to 
plead  with  and  defy  God!  0,  how  certainly  will 
their  defiance  of  Him  be  visited  on  their  own  head. 
Therefore  be  humble,  and  confess  thy  misdeeds,  if 
thou  wouldst  escape  divine  punishment. 

[Pusey  :  Will  ye  render  me  a  recompense.  Men 
never  want  pleas  for  themselves.  Men  forget  their 
own  wrong-doings,  and  remember  their  sufferings. 
Men,  when  they  submit  not  to  God  chastening 
them,  hate  Him. 

Henry  :  My  silver.  Those  who  take  away  the 
estates  of  good  men  for  well-doing,  will  be  found 
guilty  of  sacrilege  ;  they  take  God's  silver  and 
gold.  It  is  no  new  thing  for  those  who  have  been 
very  civil  to  their  neighbors,  to  find  them  very  un- 
kind and  unneighborly,  and  for  those  who  do  no 
injuries  to  suffer  many.  — F.] 

Vers.  1-7.  The  raging  of  the  nations  and  their 
rulers  is  an  indication  of  that  fleshly  mind  which 
is  always  opposed  to  the  kingdom  of  God.  So,  long 
as  the  hope  of  that  kingdom  was  confined  to  Israel, 
the  hatred  of  the  heathen  was  spent  on  Israel. 
When  that  kingdom  was  taken  from  Israel,  and 
given  to  the  "  little  flock,"  which  "  brought  forth 
the  fruit  of  it,"  that  hatred  was  simply  transferred. 
The  world  ever  has  sought  and  still  seeks  to  divide 
the  heritage  of  the  Lord,  and  to  bring  to  shame 
those  who  trust  in  his  word  of  promise.  But  when 
God  regathers  his  scattered  people  Israel,  and  re- 
establishes down-troddeu  Jerusalem,  He  will  also 
deliver  the  rest  of  his  elect,  and  fully  recompense 
them  for  the  sufferings  which  the  world  has  in- 
flicted on  them. 

Ver.  9.  Prepare  war.  Peace  must  end  when 
we  are  called  on  to  combat  the  enemies  of  God. 
Then,  all  must  take  up  arms.  "I  came  not  to 
send  peace,  but  a  sword."  Through  conflict  to 
victory !  though  war  to  peace  ! 

Ver.  10.  [Puset  :  Ploughshares  into  swords. 
Peace  within  with  God  flows  forth  in  peace  with 
man.  Where  there  is  not  rest  in  God,  all  is  unrest. 
And  so,  all  which  was  needful  for  life,  the  means  of 
subsistence,  care  of  health,  were  to  be  forgotten 
for  war.  —  F.] 

Vers.  11,  12.  Hasten  and  come.  Behold  how 
she  Lord  holds  the  godless  persecutors  of  his  Church 
m  derision  !     Let  them  do  what  they  like,  his  ven- 


geance shall  finally  overtake  them.  If  God  be  for 
us,  who  can  be  against  us?  Th"  Lord  sits  as 
ruler,  and  is  ever  judging  nations  and  individuals. 
No  one  can  escape  his  judgment.  He  may  long 
seem  to  be  silent,  but  ever  and  anon  He  comes 
forth  with  his  judgments  now,  the  harbingers  of  the 
final  and  decisive  one. 

[Henry  :  Thy  mighty  ones.  When  God's  cans* 
is  to  be  pleaded,  either  by  the  law  or  by  the  sword, 
He  has  those  ready  who  will  plead  it  effectually  ; 
witnesses  ready  to  appear  for  Him  in  the  court  of 
judgment,  soldiers  ready  to  appear  for  Him  in  tha 
field  of  battle.  — F.J 

Ver.  13.  For  their  wickedness  is  great.  When 
the  measure  of  men's  sins  is  full,  then  execution 
comes.  The  judgments  of  God  are  then  no  longer 
delayed. 

Vers.  14-16.  The  day  of  the  Lord  is  near.  Trem- 
ble ye  godless,  for  the  day  is  near  when  the  Lord 
will  judge  you  !  Behold,  the  lion  is  already  roar- 
ing out  of  Zion  announcing  your  punishment. 
Should  not  that  voice,  which  shall  one  day  be 
heard  by  the  whole  earth,  arouse  you  to  repent- 
ance 1  To  the  wicked,  God  is  a  roaring  lion,  but 
to  the  godly  a  strong  fortress. 

As  God  always  cared  for  and  defended  his  peculiar 
people  against  the  rage  of  their  enemies,  so  Christ 
now  protects  his  peculiar  people,  Christians,  against 
the  violence  of  their  foes.  He  may  allow  them, 
for  a  time,  to  be  persecuted,  to  try  and  perfect  their 
faith  by  "  manifold  temptations,"  but,  in  the  end, 
He  will  destroy  their  enemies.  Examples  of  this 
have  occurred  in  past  ages ;  but  a  greater  ruin 
awaits  them.  When  the  great  and  terrible  day  of 
the  Lord  comes,  He  will  gather  all  his  enemies 
into  the  valley  of  Jehoshaphat ;  He  will  bring  them 
before  his  tribunal,  and  plead  with  them  for  his 
heritage  and  people,  and  will  return  upon  their 
own  heads  all  the  evils  they  have  inflicted  upon 
the  true  Christendom. 

[Henry  :  The  Lord  shall  roar.  The  judgment 
of  the  great  day  shall  make  the  ears  of  those  to 
tingle  who  continue  the  implacable  enemies  of  God. 
As  blessings  out  of  Zion  are  the  sweetest  blessings, 
and  enough  to  make  heaven  and  earth  sing,  so  ter- 
rors out  of  Zion  are  the  sorest  terrors,  and  enough 
to  make  heaven  and  earth  shake. —  The  saints  are 
the  Israel  of  God  ;  now  in  the  great  day  ( 1 )  Their 
longings  shall  be  satisfied.  The  Lord  will  be  the 
Hope  of  his  people.  As  He  always  was  the  Founder 
and  Foundation  of  their  hopes,  so  He  will  then  be 
the  Crown  of  their  hopes.  They  shall  arrive  at 
the  desired  haven  ;  shall  put  to  shore  after  a  stormy 
voyage  ;  they  shall  go  to  be  forever  at  home  with 
God.  (2)  Their  happiness  shall  be  confirmed.  God 
will  be  in  that  day  the  Strength  of  the  children  oj 
Israel,  enabling  them  to  welcome  that  day,  and  to 
bear  up  under  the  weight  of  its  glories  and  toys. 
-F.J 

Ver.  17.  Ye  shall  know.  So  long  as  believers 
are  here  below,  sighing  under  the  burden  of  sin, 
and  not  seeing  the  means  of  delivsrance,  they  are 
apt  to  think  that  God  has  abandoned  them. 

[Henry  :  The  knowledge  which  true  believer* 
have  of  God  is  (1)  An  appropriating  knowledge, 
they  know  that  He  is  the  Lord  their  God,  yet  not 
theirs  only,  but  theirs  in  common  with  the  whole 
Church.  (2)  An  experimental  knowledge.  They 
shall  find  Him  their  Hope  and  Strength,  in  tha 
worst  of  times.  Those  know  best  the  goodness  of 
God,  who  have  tasted  and  seen  it. 

Posey  :  God  Himself  joins  on  his  own  wordi 
to  those  of  the  prophet.  Ye  shall  know  by  expert 
encc.  by  si/^ht,  face  to  face,  what  ye  now  believe. 


42 


JOEL. 


that  I  am  the  Lord  your  God.  Your  God,  your 
own.  as  much  as  if  possessed  by  none  besides,  till- 
ing all  with  gladness,  yet  fully  possessed  by  each. 
_F.] 

Ver.  18.  In  that  day.  Glorious  are  the  prom- 
ises to  the  Church  of  the  New  Covenant,  but  they 
will  be  completely  fulfilled  only  in  a  blessed  eter- 
nity. In  this  world  God  feeds  us,  comforts  us  with 
nis  Word  and  sacraments,  consoles  us  with  mani- 
fold blessings  in  Christ,  but  in  the  future  world, 
this  grace  will  be  far  more  superabundant.  —  By 
the  mountains  are  meant  the  kingdoms  of  this 
world,  which  shall  flow  with  the  wine  and  milk  of 
Christian  doctrine,  by  which  a  rich  measure  of 
spiritual  gifts  shall  be  imparted  to  men.  For  the 
Gospel  is  very  finely  compared  to  wine  as  well  as 
milk;  to  wine  since  it  is  administered  to  the  adult 
to  gladden  his  heart,  and  confirm  his  faith,  hope, 
and  love  ;  to  milk,  as  it  is  also  administered  to 
children  in  Christ,  who,  as  new-born  babes,  desire 
the  sincere  milk  of  the  Word.  As  wine  comforts 
and  strengthens  man's  heart,  so  the  Word  of  God 
preserves  and  increases  faith,  and  imparts  consola- 
tion under  sufferings.  The  law  does  the  opposite, 
holy  and  just  though  it  be.  It  accuses  them,  and 
threatens  death  ;  it  makes  them  faint-hearted  and 
despondent.  But  the  Gospel  banishes  fear,  by  re- 
vealing a  Mediator,  the  Son  of  God,  and  filling 
the  soul  with  an  assurance  of  the  mercy  of  God. 
By  rivers  flowing  with  water,  the  prophet  means 
the  wonderful  spread  of  the  Gospel,  and  the  rich 
fruit  it  will  produce.  As  dry  places  are  barren, 
and  well  watered  ones  fertile,  so  where  the  Gospel 
resounds,  the  richest  and  ripest  fruits  are  produced. 
The  Holy  Spirit  goes  with  it,  imparting  his  own 
divine  gifts. 

[Posey  :  As  the  fountain  gushes  forth  from  the 
hill  or  mountain  side  in  one  ceaseless  flow,  day 
and  night,  streaming  out  from  the  recesses  to  which 
the  waters  are  supplied  by  God  from  his  treasure- 
house  of  the  rain,  so  clay  by  day,  in  sorrow  or  in 
joy,  in  prosperity  or  adversity,  God  pours  out  in 
the  Church,  and  in  the  souls  of  his  elect,  the  riches 
of  his  grace.  The  love  of  God  shall  stream  through 
every  heart;  each  shall  be  full  according  to  its 
capacity,  and  none  the  less  full,  because  a  larger 
tide  pours  through  others.  All  the  powers,  capaci- 
ties, senses,  speech  of  the  saints  who  confess  God 
shall  flow  with  a  perennial  stream  of  joy,  thanks- 
giving, and  jubilee,  as  of  all  pleasure  and  bliss.  — 
F.] 

Ver.  19.  Shed  innocent  blood.  How  highly  does 
the  Lord  esteem  the  death,  the  blood  of  the  faith- 
ful! 

[Henry:  The  innocent  blood  of  God's  people 
is  very  precious  to  Him,  and  not  a  drop  shall  be 
Bhed,  but  it  shall  be  reckoned  for.  — F.] 

Vers.  20,  21.  Judah  shall  dwell  forever.  The 
Church  of  the  New  Covenant  is  imperishable,  for 
it  shall  be  transplanted  from  time  into  eternity. 
Blessed  Zion  !  in  which  the  Lord  dwells  with  his 
Word,  and  the  gifts  of  his  Spirit,  and  which  He 
quickens  by  his  converting  and  sanctifying  power. 
Let  us  make  here  for  ourselves  tabernacles,  and 
ierve  this  great  King  of  hearts  in  the  obedience  of 
tith,  so  that  wc  may  at  last  be  transferred  to  the 


heavenly  Jerusalem.  O,  the  depth  of  the  riches, 
of  the  wisdom,  and  of  the  knowledge  of  God ! 
Of  the  riches  of  grace,  since  God,  in  spite  of  the 
unbelief  and  disobedience  of  his  people,  has  not 
forgotten  them,  nor  abrogated  his  covenant.  Of 
the  wisdom,  which  turns  so  many  hindrances  into 
the  means  of  helping  forward  his  own  purposes. 
Of  the  knowledge  which  has  foreseen  and  with 
absolute  certainty  has  predicted  all  these  things. 
Learn  from  Israel,  the  courageous  trust  thou 
mayest  have  in  the  mercy  of  God,  even  though 
thou  shouldst  lie  beneath  his  heavy  hand,  as  long 
as  Jerusalem  has  lain  in  her  ruins.  Learn  that  the 
wisdom  of  God  can  never  fail,  nor  be  at  fault,  and 
yield  thyself  in  all  circumstances  to  his  wise  guid- 
ance. When  something  happens  to  thee  unexpect 
edly,  and  destroys  some  hope  which  you  may  havtj 
fondly  cherished,  call  to  mind  and  consider  the 
truth,  that  "known  unto  God  are  all  his  works 
from  the  foundation  of  the  world" 

[Henry  :  It  is  promised  that  the  Church  shall 
be  very  happy.    Three  things  are  here  promised  it. 

1.  Purity.  That  is  put  last  here  as  a  reason  for 
the  rest  (ver.  21 ).  But  we  may  consider  it  first  as 
the  ground  and  foundation  of  the  rest.  /  will 
cleanse,  etc. 

2.  Plenty  (ver.  18).  That  is  put  first  because  it 
speaks  the  reverse  of  the  judgment  threatened  in 
the  foregoing  chapters.  The  streams  of  this  plenty 
overflow  and  enrich  the  land. 

3.  Perpetuity.  This  crowns  all  the  rest.  As  ona 
generation  of  professing  Christians  passes  away, 
another  shall  come,  in  whom  the  throne  of  Christ 
shall  endure  forever. 

Robinson  :  The  last  days  are  at  hand,  when 
the  wicked  shall  be  driven  away  in  their  wicked- 
ness, and  a  fiery  deluge  of  wrath  shall  overwhelm 
the  earth,  but  they  who  love  the  Lord  shall  be 
removed,  as  Lot,  to  a  mountain  of  safety,  and  like 
Noah,  be  hidden  in  an  ark  of  salvation,  until  the  des- 
olation and  the  tyranny  be  overpassed.  Wherefore, 
dear  Christian  brethren,  lift  up  your  hearts,  and 
long  for  his  coming,  for  you  shall  be  his  in  that 
day  when  He  makes  up  his  jewels. 

Jesus,  thy  Church  with  longing  eyes 

For  thy  expected  coming  waits  : 
When  will  the  promised  light  arise, 

And  glory  gleam  from  Ziou's  gates* 

Teach  us  in  watchfulness  and  prayer 

To  wait  for  the  appointed  hour  ; 
And  fit  us  by  thy  grace  to  share 

The  triumphs  of  thy  conquering  power.  —  l.j 

Prayer  suggested  by  tiie  whole  Chapter. 
—  Great  Saviour  !  we  thank  Thee  that  Thou  wilt 
one  day  judge  the  enemies  of  Thy  Church,  and  wilt 
recompense  their  persecutions  and  abominations 
on  their  own  heads.  Grant  that  their  further 
wicked  designs  may  not  injure  Thy  Zion.  Arise 
and  punish  them  ;  deliver  Thy  faithful  ones,  and 
be  their  refuge  and  fortress  amid  the  judgments 
which  shall  overtake  the  world  of  the  ungodly. 
Adorn  Thy  Zion  with  the  rich  gifts  of  Thy  Spirit 
that  it  may  be  holy  before  Thee,  and  ever  overflow 
with  spiritual  blessings.     Amen. 


Date  Due 


